NASA has photographed a "space potato" on Mars. Photo
NASA presented an interesting photo of a "space potato" on Mars. The new image was taken by a Martian satellite.
However, scientists emphasize that this is not a potato at all and should not be eaten. This starchy-looking bun is actually the Martian satellite Phobos, which is on a slow collision course with the Red Planet, Livescience reports.
Phobos really does look like a potato.
Source: Getty
Phobos is the largest of the two moons of Mars, although its diameter is only 27 by 22 by 18 kilometers. That is, it is about 157 times smaller than our Moon. Because Phobos is so small, its gravity is not strong enough to pull it into a sphere.
The characteristic features of Phobos are bands of white ice and a crater called Stickney (a 10-kilometer-long depression).
The second moon of Mars is Deimos, which is 15 km in size. The surface of Deimos is much smoother than that of Phobos, and it does not have the furrows characteristic of Phobos.
Deimos is the smallest moon of the Red Planet.
Source: Wikipedia.org
Scientists believe that the twin satellites once roamed the rocks and were captured into Mars orbit by the planet's gravitational field.
Mars has two satellites.
Source: Getty
The orbits of the two satellites are unstable, so scientists predict that in tens of millions of years, Deimos will fly out into space, and Phobos will either disintegrate into a ring or crash into the surface of Mars. However, NASA scientists on their Instagram page reassure us that since Phobos approaches Mars only 1.8 meters every hundred years, it will reach the Red Planet in about 50 million years. So scientists still have plenty of time to study this "space potato" before it turns into mashed potatoes.
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