Moons of Mars Proposed NASA's PADME mission proposes to launch in 2020 and reach Mars orbit in 2021 to conduct multiple flybys of the Martian moons. Also, NASA is assessing the OSIRIS-REx II, concept mission for a sample return from Phobos. Another sample return mission from Deimos, called Gulliver. has been conceptualized. Russia plans to repeat Fobos-Grunt mission around 2024. Moons of Mars The two moons of Mars are Phobos and Deimos. Both were discovered by Asaph Hall in August 1877 and are named after the Greek mythological twin characters Phobos (panic/fear) and Deimos (terror/dread) who accompanied their father Ares, god of war,
History of Solar System formation and evolution hypotheses stars and clusters and the star-clouds of the Milky Way", which proposed that the planets formed in the outer Solar System and were captured by the Sun; the moons were formed in thus manner and were captured by the planets. This caused a feud with Forest Moulton, who co-developed the planetesimal hypothesis. A preview was presented in 1909 at a meeting of the ASP (Astronomical Society of the Pacific) at the Chabot Observatory in Oakland, Cal., and newspaper headlines blared "Prof. See's Paper Causes Sensation" (San Francisco Call) and "Scientists in Furore Over Nebulae" (San Francisco Examiner). Our current knowledge