One of Mars’ moons has always been front and center in space discovery, but a latest mission has uncovered unique shots of its smaller and additionally mysterious celestial body.
Hera, a European spacecraft, has captured rare images of Mars’ lesser-known moon, Deimos, as it speeds toward a pair of asteroids more than 110 million miles away.
The spacecraft, launched by the European Space Agency (ESA), snapped photos of Mars and Deimos during its flyby, providing valuable insights into the red planet's moons — as shown in their report of the mission.
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Deimos, the smaller of Mars’s two moons, is just eight miles wide and orbits alongside the larger Phobos. Unlike Phobos, which often steals the spotlight, Deimos remains a mysterious object.
During the flyby, Hera came within 620 miles of Deimos and used advanced instruments to capture images of its far side, a view rarely seen by astronomers. The spacecraft was traveling at over 20,000 mph, making this quite the remarkable feat.
Michael Kueppers, Hera’s mission scientist, expressed excitement about the findings, saying: “These instruments have been tried out before, during Hera’s departure from Earth, but this is the first time that we have employed them on a small distant moon for which we still lack knowledge.”
Deimos’s tidally locked nature, meaning it always shows the same face to Mars, adds to its mystery. Scientists believe the moon might be the remnant of a massive impact with Mars or an asteroid that became captured by the planet’s gravity.
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The photo shows Mars in a light blue hue, captured by Hera’s near-infrared Hyperscout H imager. The image also highlights the Terra Sabaea region of Mars, as well as several craters, including Huygens and Schiaparelli. Hera’s gravity-assist flyby will send the spacecraft on its way to two asteroids it’s set to reach in December 2026.
Hera’s final destination is Dimorphos, a 150-meter-wide asteroid that orbits a larger body called Didymos. In 2022, NASA’s DART probe altered Dimorphos’s orbit, marking a groundbreaking moment in planetary defense.
Hera will analyze Dimorphos to explore whether such asteroid collisions could be used to deflect potential threats to Earth in the future.
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This flyby has given scientists a unique opportunity to study Deimos and could provide crucial data as Hera continues its journey to the asteroids. As more updates from this mission come in, the work done with this innovative spacecraft is certainly something to watch out for.