One summer night in 1877, American astronomer Asaph Hall was looking through his telescope in Washington, D.C. Mars was at its closest point to Earth in its orbit, and Hall had one question on his ...

Mars may have once had a much larger moon that eventually fell into the ... however their circular orbits at the equator argued in favor of another possibility—their formation from a giant ...

Mars' two moons, Phobos and Deimos, are small, irregular, but orbit in the same equatorial plane as the red planet. Although they've long been thought to be captured asteroids, those orbits would ...

Earth's moon orbits at an average distance of 384,400km (238,855 miles), but the scale of the impact that ultimately sparked its formation was much grander than the asteroid that formed Phobos and ...

Mars Express, which is a 19-year-veteran spacecraft in orbit around Mars, came within 51.6 miles (83 kilometers) of Phobos on Sept. 22, 2022 and was able to probe beneath the moon's surface using ...

Both satellites revolve around Mars in nearly circular orbits, and very nearly in the plane of the planet's equator. Phobos orbits a mere 3,700 miles (6,000 km) above the Martian surface.

As the moon orbits the planet, the two bodies exert a gravitational pull on each other. Phobos tugs on Mars’ crust and interior, and Mars’ gravity pulls the moon toward the planet, changing ...

How "asteroid detectives" protect Earth from potential impacts 03:15. A space probe flying past Mars captured images of the red planet's small, mysterious moon.

These types of events happen when the two orbits of Mars and the Moon seem to cross, depending on where you are in the world. We previously had another Mars lunar occultation occur eight weeks ...

As the moon orbits Earth every 29 days, it makes a big circle around the sky, crossing the ecliptic twice. (Imagine two hula hoops, one inside the other, and both tipped a bit. They cross in two ...

Mars is currently shining at a magnitude -2.50, which makes it brighter than anything else in the night sky except for Venus (magnitude -3.97) and the Moon (magnitude -12.53).

Mars will seem to disappear behind the full wolf moon Monday for many sky-gazers. Throughout January, also look up to see Venus, Saturn and Jupiter in the night sky.