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NASAhas send a sensational picture of a " space potato " on societal media — but it is actually Phobos , the Martian moon that is locked on a slow hit course with the Red Planet .
The space agencyimagedthe lumpy , starchy - looking moon using the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment ( HiRISE ) television camera on control board NASA ’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter , which has been studying the Red Planet since arriving in its orbit in 2006 .
NASA’s snap of Phobos, captured by the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera on its Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.
Phobos , named after the Greek god of fear , is roughly 157 times small than Earth ’s moon and is one ofMars’two natural artificial satellite , alongside the even small Deimos , whose name comes from the Greek god of dread .
Scientists believe that the pal moon were once roll careen and were snare into Mars ' orbit by the satellite ’s gravitative athletic field . A late image depth psychology of Phobos ' craggy yet extremely brooding surface suggested the moonwas once a cometand came from the asteroid whang located between the Red Planet and Jupiter .
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The two moons ' orbits are unstable , and scientists forebode that in tens of millions of years Deimos will spin out into space while Phobos will either break up into a ring or slam into the Martian surface .
However , with Phobos drifting only 6 feet ( 1.8 meters ) nearer to Mars every hundred class , oursolar system’sspace white potato is unlikely to be bray foranother 50 million age , according to NASA .
That leaves us with passel of time to study and admire the starchy supernal body , whose characteristic feature include streaks of white-hot ice and the Stickney Crater — a 6 - mile ( 10 kilometers ) indention named after Chloe Angeline Stickney Hall , the mathematician and wife of the two lunation ' finder Asaph Hall , who first oberved them in 1877 .
