| Themes > Science > Astronomy > The Solar System > The Solar System > The Planet Mars > The Moons of Mars | ||||
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These are examples of what are called minor satellites: small chunks of rock in orbit around planets as compared with large satellites like the Earth's Moon. As the adjacent images show, they are very irregular in shape. Phobos is 27 km long in its longest dimension and Deimos is 15 km long in its longest dimension.
The figure to the right (Ref)
shows a rather spectacular image taken by the Viking 2 orbiter from an
altitude of about 8000 miles above the Martian surface. The image looks
down on a Martian shield volcano (Ascraeus Mons) which is about 200 miles
across and in the center. The object down and to the left of the volcano
is Phobos, which is 5000 miles below the orbiter, and 3000 miles above
the Martian surface! (The regular horizontal rows of dots seen in the
image are an artifact associated with the imaging; they don't correspond
to real features.)
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