News in Brief Planetary Science

Mars once had many moons

Phobos, Deimos all that’s left of larger family formed in wake of asteroid impact, simulation suggests

Martian moons

MANY MOONS AGO  Mars’ moons, Deimos (left) and Phobos (right), might have formed out of rocks blasted off the Red Planet by a large asteroid, a new study suggests.

Deimos: JPL-Caltech/NASA, U. Arizona; Phobos: ESA, DLR, FU Berlin, CC-BY-SA IGO 3.0

By Christopher Crockett

- More than 2 years ago

Mars’ misshapen moons, Phobos and Deimos, might be all that’s left of a larger family that arose in the wake of a giant impact with the Red Planet billions of years ago, researchers report online July 4 in Nature Geoscience.