NASA robot captures Mars moon at an altitude of 23,458km

The Perseverance robot observed Deimos, the red planet's 12.4km-wide moon, on the rare occasion of pointing the camera into the sky.

NASA's Perseverance robot team on August 20 posted on Twitter a short time-lapse video of Mars' moon Deimos. Perseverance landed in the 45km-wide Jezero crater in February. This robot often observes below, studying soil and rock with the main task of finding traces of ancient life and collecting samples to send back to Earth in the future. future.

However, sometimes Perseverance also "lifts its head" and doesn't just observe the clouds. For example, in April and May, this robot helps to record the flights of Ingenuity helicopters. Ingenuity is still doing well and has just completed its 12th flight on the red planet.

Deimos is 12.4km wide, orbiting Mars at an altitude of 23,458km. This moon completes a nearly circular orbit in about 30 hours. The other moon of Mars, Phobos, is about 22km in diameter and moves at an altitude of only 9,234km. Most astronomers believe that both of these natural satellites are asteroids trapped by the gravity of Mars.

Deimos is 12.4km wide, orbiting Mars at an altitude of 23,458km.

Earth's Moon is 3,475 km wide and moves at an average altitude of 384,470 km. It is likely made up of material ejected into space by a powerful collision that occurred more than 4.4 billion years ago between the early Earth and Theia, a body about the size of Mars.

Other NASA robots have also observed Mars' two small moons. For example, the Curiosity robot has captured numerous images of Phobos and Deimos since landing in Gale in August 2012, including time-lapse videos of each moon passing in front of the Sun, causing a solar eclipse. a part.