Mars' Moons
Phobos
Deimos
Here we see Mars' two potato shaped moons, 'Phobos' and 'Deimos'. They are named after the Greek
words for fear and panic. These moons are very small for moons, Phobos is 22 Km in Diameter, and
Deimos is 12 Km in Diameter. Note their irregular shapes, satellites orbiting planets that are this
small are irregularly shaped due to the fact that they are too small too have a powerful enough
gravitational field to "spin" them into a spherical shape. These moons were captured by
Mars' gravitational pull from the
Asteroid belt between Mars and
Jupiter. If a meteroid wasn't moving too quickly and weren't on a direct
collision course with Mars. Mars could very vell capture this 'stray'
meteroid and would have acquired another small moon.
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