NASA rover shares stunning images of Mars' moon Deimos

On a clear, cloudless night, you can easily look up and admire the majestic beauty of our moon, its surface illuminated by the sun. But have you ever wondered what other moons in our solar system look like when viewed from the surface of other planets?

 

NASA's Perseverance rover - which has been on a mission to explore the surface of Mars since 2021 - has just shared a stunning image of Deimos, one of the Red Planet's two moons, back to Earth.

Perseverance took this photo in March 'in the predawn hours' using a long exposure using its left-hand navigation camera (Navcam). The photo also captures two stars — Regulus and Algieba — from the constellation Leo, which NASA has identified.

At just 7.7 miles (12.4 km) in diameter, Deimos — which scientists believe is likely an asteroid captured by Mars — is much smaller than Earth's moon (2,159 miles/3,474 km in diameter).

While Deimos orbits Mars at a distance of 14,577 miles (23,460 km), our moon is much farther away — about 238,855 miles (384,400 km) from Earth.

Additionally, our moon is spherical, while Deimos has an irregular shape that NASA humorously describes as 'potato-like.'

The image offers a welcome change from the usual photos of Mars' terrain that rovers typically take while searching for traces of ancient microbial life, allowing us to briefly appreciate the broader cosmic context of Perseverance's mission.

In many ways, this remarkable image is not only a technical achievement but also offers a moment of reflection in the probe's monumental mission to seek knowledge beyond our home planet.