Mars Orbiter Mission: ISRO shares image of mysterious moon Phobos

Touted as the biggest and the closest moon of Mars, ISRO states that the image was captured by Mars Orbiter Mission on July 1, when it was about 7,200 km from the red planet.

The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) on Friday shared a recent image of the mysterious moon of Mars, Phobos, as captured by the Mars Orbiter Mission.

The image was captured on July 1 by the Mars Colour Camera.
Taking to Twitter, ISRO shared the image and wrote, “A recent image of the mysterious moon of Mars, Phobos, as captured by India’s Mars Orbiter Mission.”

“Mars Colour Camera (MCC) onboard Mars Orbiter Mission has imaged Phobos, the closest and biggest moon of Mars, on July 1 when MOM was about 7,200 kilometres from Mars and at 4,200 kilometres from Phobos,” ISRO said.

Also read: With highest single-day spike of 22,771 cases, India’s Covid-19 tally reaches 6.4 lakh

Also read: Earthquake with 4.7 magnitude jolts Delhi-NCR

The spatial resolution of the image is 210 metres. This is a composite image generated from 6 MCC frames and has been colour corrected, the space agency stated.

“Phobos is largely believed to be made up of carbonaceous chondrites. The violent phase that Phobos has encountered is seen in the large section gouged out from a past collision, (Stickney crater) and bouncing ejecta. Stickney, the largest crater on Phobos along with the other craters (Shklovsky, Roche and Grildrig) are also seen in this image,” ISRO further said.

The mission was launched on November 5, 2013, by PSLV-C25, an expandable launch system, and entered the Martian orbit on September 24, 2014, in its first attempt.

Also read: Ban on International flights extended till July 31: DGCA