Skip to main content

NASA Captures Photo of Phobos, Mars’ Most Mysterious Moon

By Mar 7th, 2016, 11:56 am

nasa phobos maven

NASA recently released a brand new image they’ve captured of Phobos, Mars’ most mysterious moon. They’ve been conducting research into how Phobos was formed; its unusual orbit, its surface features, and other factors piqued NASA’s curiosity. So, as a part of the MAVEN (Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution) mission, they snapped this photo of Phobos in ultraviolet light, capturing the mid-ultraviolet light reflected off the moon’s surface (orange sunlight) and the far-ultraviolet light of Mars’ upper atmosphere (blue dots).

Foremost in MAVEN scientists’ minds is the hope that they’ll find out more about potential organic molecules on the moon’s surface. A Mars Express spacecraft found evidence of these molecules, and MAVEN hopes to secure even more proof that these molecules exist.

(via LiveScience, image via NASA)

—Please make note of The Mary Sue’s general comment policy.—

Do you follow The Mary Sue on Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, Pinterest, & Google +?

Have a tip we should know? [email protected]

Filed Under:

Follow The Mary Sue:

Jessica Lachenal - Assistant Editor

Jessica Lachenal is a writer who doesn’t talk about herself a lot, so she isn’t quite sure how biographical info panels should work. But here we go anyway. She's the Weekend Editor for The Mary Sue, a Contributing Writer for The Bold Italic (thebolditalic.com), and a Staff Writer for Spinning Platters (spinningplatters.com). She's also been featured in Model View Culture and Frontiers LA magazine, and on Autostraddle. She hopes this has been as awkward for you as it has been for her.