The Moot Robot takes a picture of two Martian moons

Recently, the Curiosity self-propelled robot has captured pictures showing the two Mars moons are Phobos and Deimos and sent to Earth.

According to Forbes magazine, Mo Mo robot has taken 41 photos of Phobos and Deimos moon on August 1. It took a week for new photos to be transferred to the US Aerospace Agency (NASA). This is the first time NASA has taken a picture of the two moons of Mars .

Picture 1 of The Moot Robot takes a picture of two Martian moons
Photo of two moons seen from the surface of Mars - (Photo: Forbes)

In the photos, the moon Phobos looks much larger than Deimos and obscures part of Deimos. In fact, Phobos is only twice as big as Deimos but the distance from Phobos to Mars is much closer to Deimos. Therefore, Phobos in the image looks bigger.

Astronomer Asaph Hall discovered two moons of Mars in 1877. The current scientific world believes that the fact that two meteorites are attracted to Mars's gravity. But there is also a view that these two moons are parts of Mars separated when the red planet collides with a celestial body.

Interestingly, two Martian moons are predicted in science fiction books. In 1726, writer Jonathan Swif, when writing Gulliver's autograph , mentioned two Martian moons. In the Micromegas short story written in 1750, writer Voltaire also talked about these two moons.

The Phobos moon is only about 11.2 km wide, moving in orbit about 5.954km from the Martian surface and gradually moving toward the red planet. Experts predict that within 50 million years, Phobos will crash into Mars.

In contrast, the moon Deimos is only 6.4 km wide, moving about 19,955 km from Mars and moving away from the red planet.