DEIMOS – Smaller Martian Moon | Moons Of Mars
DEIMOS – In this topic, we are going to know and learn about one of the moons of Mars, the smaller moon known as Deimos.
The Martian lumpy moon is the outermost and smaller moon of Mars, according to Space.
Like Phobos, it was initially theorized by German astronomer Johannes Kepler but was later confirmed and discovered by American astronomer Asaph Hall. What made them hard to discover was due to their closeness to the planet.
The moon was named after one of the twin sons of Ares, the Greek god of war, and is known to be the god or personification of terror or flight. The other moon, as mentioned above, is Phobos.
It is made up of a material akin to Type I or II carbonaceous chondrites, which is mostly seen on asteroids and dwarf planets. The moon has a radius of about 3.9 miles or 6.2 kilometers. It is said that both moons could be asteroids.
The orbit of the moon is almost circular which is travelling around the equatorial plane of Mars in 30 hours.
Deimos appears to be star-like, with its shine as bright as Venus. If it eclipses the sun, it would looke like a small dot crossing the surface.
It also has a number of crates which caused by impacts from meteorites. The craters are created by meteorites that were destroyed upon impact.