Once in a while, you might look up and marvel at magnificent views of our moon, its surface dramatically lit by our sun’s light. But have you ever paused to wonder what other moons might look like from the surfaces of other planets in our solar system?
NASA’s Perseverance rover, which has been exploring Mars since arriving there in dramatic fashion in 2021, has just shared an exquisite image of Deimos, one of the red planet’s two moons.
“Wishing upon a … moon?” NASA’s Perseverance team, based in California, wrote in a post on the rover’s X account on Thursday, adding: “That bright ‘star’ is actually Mars’ moon Deimos.”
Perseverance captured the image in March “in the hours before dawn” via a long-exposure using its left Navcam. The picture also includes two stars — Regulus and Algieba — from the constellation Leo, which NASA has helpfully pointed out:
With a diameter of 7.7 miles (12.4 kilometers), Deimos, which scientists believe is likely to be a captured asteroid, is much smaller than Earth’s moon, which has a diameter of 2,159 miles (3,474 kilometers).
And while Deimos orbits Mars at a distance of 14,577 miles (23,460 kilometers), Earth’s next door neighbor orbits at a far greater distance of about 238,855 miles (384,400 kilometers).
Also, our moon has a spherical shape, whereas Deimos has an irregular form that NASA has rather unflatteringly described as “potato-shaped.”
The rover’s image offers a refreshing departure from its usual focus on the martian terrain where it’s searching for signs of ancient microbial life, allowing us to appreciate for a moment the broader cosmic context of Perseverance’s mission.
In many ways, the striking photo is more than just a technical achievement as it also offers a moment of reflection during the rover’s epic mission to seek knowledge beyond our home planet.