“Deimos, One of Mars’ Smallest Moons, Caught on Camera by UAE Spacecraft Hope”

SPACE — Deimos, one of two moons orbiting Mars, has sparked much debate among astronomers over the years. What has not been resolved is the matter of the weight of the seed, where did the dwarf moon with its ugly face come from.

But now, Deimos is shamelessly showing off his pockmarked face in the show close-up which had never happened before. Thank the Arab world’s advances in space technology for forcing Deimos to pose in front of the camera.

Deimos was imaged by the United Arab Emirates spacecraft Hope mission orbiting Mars, from a distance of 100 km. This striking new image was released on Monday, April 24, 2023 as the astronomer community seeks to learn more about this fascinating little world.

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“These images and observations represent a significant step forward in our knowledge of Deimos, its atmosphere, composition, origins, and what it means for our understanding of Mars more broadly,” said Mohammed Bin Rashid Space Center official, UAE Space Agency. presented the findings at the European Geosciences Union on Monday.

Observations from Hope on March 10, 2023 show Deimos is made of the same material as Mars itself. This suggests the moon formed at the same time as Mars, and not an asteroid captured by Mars’ gravity as some theories have suggested.

Hope’s observations did reveal a never-before-seen perspective of Mars and Deimos. So far, observations have only focused on Phobos, another moon of Mars. “Mars is in the background (Deimos) and that is really surprising,” Hope mission leader Hessa Al Matroushi of the Mohammed Bin Rashid Space Center in Dubai told AFP. Nature.com.

Humanity has explored Mars for decades, but most of those probes have been near the surface of the Red Planet. While Deimos is tidally locked with Mars, meaning the same side is always facing the planet. That meant that probes near Mars had only seen one side of Deimos, until Hope arrived on the scene and took a peek that was never seen.

Also known as the Emirates Mars Mission (EMM), Hope launched in mid-2020 and arrives on Mars in early 2021. The EMM is the first interplanetary spacecraft from an Arab nation with the main objective of investigating changes in the Martian atmosphere. The primary mission was accomplished with the UAE releasing a full spherical map of the red planet.

After the probe completed that primary mission, the EMM team decided to use the extra propellant left over to propel the spacecraft into a higher orbit above Deimos. This allowed scientists to image the far side of a Martian moon in detail for the first time.

Images from Hope’s first hovering flight over Deimos reveal the diminutive moon is only 12.4 kilometers wide, or about half the length of Manhattan, New York. Deimos appears relatively similar at various ultra violet wavelengths, indicating that it is composed of Mars-like material and not the usual carbon-rich asteroids.

“If there is carbon or organics, we will see spikes in certain wavelengths,” said Al Matroushi.

This fact is surprising, because scientists often think of Deimos as a captured asteroid. Instead, it looks like chunks of Mars itself, which may have shattered on impact. The beautiful moon on our Earth is also thought to have formed from a similar collision, billions of years ago. The hypothetical collision might give our planet one more thing in common with its red rock neighbour. Source: Live Science/Space.com