Moons of our Solar System: Deimos

today I will write about even smaller moon than Phobos. This time it is Deimos, again named after kid of Ares (Mars) and Aphrodite (Venus). Deimos was the god of terror/panic/dread. Radius of Deimos is 6.2 kilometers which is almost half of Phobos. This guy was also found by Asaph Hall but 6 days earlier than Phobos.

Deimos is even farther away from his father. When we would watch him from Mars´s surface we would see just a small point and in full Moon he would be bright about as Venus from our point of view, otherwise he could look like ordinary star.

On the GIF you can see Deimos hiding behind much larger Phobos. Its surface should be similar to his brother´s but instead it is much smoother which is made by “sand” which smooths everything out over time.

Martian Moon Deimos in High Resolution

There are only two features named and those are craters Swift and Voltaire named after writers who speculated about moons around Mars even before anybody new they are there.

Its original is not really sure. Usually you will find that Jupiter´s gravitation threw both moons toward Mars and he caught them (this would one reason for so circular orbits of both moons) but most likely they are his kids anyway.

And again his escape velocity is 20.16km/h so if you can run 50 meters in less than 8 seconds you will be able to left him… if it would work like this.


If you have not read about Phobos yet, you should!