Phobos and Deimos in fiction Swift. In recognition of these mentions, many geological features of Phobos and Deimos are named after characters and places from "Gulliver's Travels", including among others "Laputa Regio" and "Lagado Planitia" on Phobos, and craters Swift and Voltaire on Deimos. Phobos and Deimos in fiction Mars has two moons, Phobos and Deimos. Due to their small size, both moons were discovered only in 1877, by astronomer Asaph Hall. Nevertheless, they frequently feature in works of science fiction. Some of the earliest mentions of Mars's moons in fiction predate their discovery. In Jonathan Swift's famous satire "Gulliver's Travels" (1726), the astronomers of
Phobos (moon) who studied Phobos and people and places from Jonathan Swift's "Gulliver's Travels". A number of craters have been named, and are listed in the following table. There is one named regio, "Laputa Regio", and one named planitia, "Lagado Planitia"; both are named after places in "Gulliver's Travels" (the fictional Laputa, a flying island, and Lagado, imaginary capital of the fictional nation Balnibarbi). The only named ridge on Phobos is "Kepler Dorsum", named after the astronomer Johannes Kepler. The orbital motion of Phobos has been intensively studied, making it "the best studied natural satellite in the Solar System" in terms of