NASA Mars Rover Spots Two Passing Moons, Phobos and Deimos (Video)

NASA's Mars rover Curiosity continues to trek across the Red Planet. Now, the rover has captured some stunning images of the two moons circling the planet. It's taken pictures of Phobos passing directly in front of Deimos, compiling them together to form a video.

In the new images, you can clearly see the large craters on Phobos, the larger of the two moons. In fact, this moon may appear larger still in the future. The orbit of Phobos is slowly getting closer to Mars while the orbit of Deimos, in contrast, may be slowly getting further away.

In order to capture the new photos, the scientists employed Curiosity's two-camera Mast Camera (Mastcam) instrument. Possessing a telephoto-lens camera, the instrument was able to clearly show scientists the two moons passing one another for the first time. In fact, the scientists were somewhat lucky to capture these images. They learned that the two moons would be visible crossing paths at a time shortly after Curiosity would be "awake" for transmitting data to NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter for relay. This perfect timing made the observations feasible.

"The ultimate goal is to improve orbit knowledge enough that we can improve the measurement of the tides Phobos raises on the Martian solid surface, giving knowledge of the Martian interior," said Mark Lemmon of Texas A&M in a news release. "We may also get good enough to detect density variations within Phobos and to determine if Deimos' orbit is systematically changing."

Phobos has a diameter less than one percent the diameter of Earth's moon and orbits far closer to Mars than our moon's distance from Earth. Seen from the surface of Mars, Phobos appears about half as wide as what our own moon looks like from Earth.

The latest findings reveal a little bit more about the moons of Mars. This could lead to further understanding about the Red Planet and how various bodies influence it.

Want to see the moons for yourself? Check out the video below, courtesy of YouTube.