Astronomers confirmed that Mars, the “red planet” named after the Roman god of war, has two small moons, Phobos and Deimos, whose names are derived from the Greek and mean fear and terror.
The experts added, these Martian moons may be asteroids that originated in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, or perhaps from regions farther from our solar system. The largest moon, Phobos, is full of craters shown in this color image taken by NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.
But astronomers report that Phobos’ orbit is so close to Mars – about 5,800 km above the surface compared to 400,000 km for our moon – that Mars’ gravitational pull is pulling it down. Perhaps within 50 million years, Phobos is expected to disintegrate into a ring of debris.