The European Space Agency’s (ESA) Mars Orbiter captured a rare moment of the Mars moon Deimos passing in front of Jupiter and its four largest moons. The orbiter, called ExoMars, has been observing the geology of Mars since 2003 and has also observed the planet’s two moons: Phobos and Deimos. In the same observations, the orbiter captured what the European Space Agency (ESA) called a rare sight, and such an alignment allows for more precise determination of the orbits of Mars’ moons.
Watch Deimos destroy Jupiter and its moons
According to the European Space Agency, this alignment is very unusual because Deimos must be exactly in the plane of the orbits of Jupiter’s moons for the alignment to take place. The animation, which was produced using 80 high-resolution stereo camera (HRSC) images, shows the undulating surface of the eclipsed Jupiter Deimos measuring 15km and is irregularly shaped. The gas giant moons appear as tiny white spots, as they are located nearly 750 million kilometers from the Mars Express, which is five times the distance between the Sun and Earth.
From left to right, Deimos first passes the frozen moon Europa, the largest moon in the solar system, Ganymede, the highly active volcanic moon of Io, and finally the cratered full moon Callisto. The spacecraft observed Phobos and Deimos as scientists aimed to understand more about their surface composition, in particular, the topography of the mysterious Phobos fossils and their mysterious origin by analyzing their orbits.
“It is difficult to measure their orbits from Earth due to the brightness of Mars compared to such small objects,” said the European Space Agency.
Interestingly, the animation shows Deimos bouncing in the animation due to the small swaying motion of the Mars Express as it rotates to hold the HRSC camera in place. Another interesting fact is that the moons experience strong tidal forces from Mars that cause their orbits to oscillate. This could be why Phobos, which orbits Mars from a distance of only 6000 km, is moving towards the red planet as Deimos is moving away from it.
