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A transit of Phobos from Mars usually lasts only thirty seconds or so, due to the moon's very rapid orbital period of approximately 7.6 hours. Because Phobos orbits close to Mars and in line with its equator, transits of Phobos occur somewhere on Mars on most days of the Martian year. Its orbital inclination is 1.08°, so the latitude of its ...
(Phobos is about 157 times smaller than Earth’s Moon. Mars’ other moon, Deimos, is even smaller.) The images are the latest in a long history of NASA spacecraft capturing solar eclipses on Mars. Back in 2004, the twin NASA rovers Spirit and Opportunity took the first time-lapse photos of Phobos during a solar eclipse.
Both sets of findings support an origin of Phobos from material ejected by an impact on Mars that reaccreted in Martian orbit, [40] similar to the prevailing theory for the origin of Earth's moon. The moons of Mars may have started with a huge collision with a protoplanet one third the mass of Mars that formed a ring around Mars.
Observers on Mars can also view lunar eclipses of Phobos and Deimos. Phobos spends about an hour in Mars's shadow; for Deimos it is about two hours. Surprisingly, despite its orbit being nearly in the plane of Mars's equator and despite its very close distance to Mars, there are some occasions when Phobos escapes being eclipsed.
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Phobos 2 investigated the Mars surface and atmosphere and returned 37 images of Phobos [3] with a resolution of up to 40 meters. Shortly before the final phase of the mission, during which the spacecraft was to approach within 50 m of Phobos' surface and release two landers (one, a mobile hopper, the other, a stationary platform) contact with ...
With an altitude of 5,989 km (3,721 mi), Phobos orbits Mars below the synchronous orbit radius, meaning that it moves around Mars faster than Mars itself rotates. [23] Therefore, from the point of view of an observer on the surface of Mars, it rises in the west, moves comparatively rapidly across the sky (in 4 h 15 min or less) and sets in the ...
If Phobos has been orbiting for 4.3 Ga (billion years) then Stickney formed 4.2 Ga ago, but if Phobos has only been orbiting for 3.5 Ga then it formed 2.6 Ga ago. [4] The impact created a large amount of ejecta which escaped Phobos' gravity and entered into orbit around Mars for a period not exceeding 1000 years, some of this material then ...