The Hope orbiter, part of the Emirates Mars Mission, has flown just 100 kilometres over the surface of Mars’s smaller moon, Deimos, and taken extraordinarily detailed observations
“We are unsure of the origins of both,” said Hessa Al Matroushi, EMM science lead, in a statement. “One long-standing theory is that they are captured asteroids, but there are unresolved questions about their composition.”The orbiter’s observations of both moons indicate that explanation is unlikely. Their compositions seem to be more similar to Mars than to asteroids, pointing to the idea that they were either formed from Mars itself or from the same reservoir of planetary material.
Hope is in a unique position to observe Deimos in most detail. Spacecraft we send to Mars usually orbit the planet relatively closely for the sake of precise observations of its surface, but Deimos circles it at an average distance of 23,460 kilometres, much too high for such craft to see it in any detailVoyage across the galaxy and beyond with our space newsletter every month.
Several more close passes to this moon are planned over the course of the next year, so we should get even more clues to its composition andThe mission was originally intended to last only one Martian year, which is nearly two Earth years, but the UAE recently announced that it will be extended by another Earth year so that it can continue
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