Rover Watches Mars’ Moons Pass One Another In The Night For First Time Ever [Video]

Today, NASA demonstrated just how neat it would be if the Earth had two moons. This video, stitched together from numerous stills captured by the Mars Curiosity rover’s Mast camera, offer the first look at Mars’ larger moon, Phobos, passing in front of and blotting out the planet’s smaller moon, Deimos.

In addition to being one heck of a cool image, NASA scientists hope that the new video will help them learn more about the strange orbits of Mars’ twin moons. Phobos, the larger of the two, appears to be orbiting closer and closer to the planet’s surface. Meanwhile, tiny Deimos appears to be straying farther and farther from it’s celestial partner.

(via NASA/JPL)

Meanwhile in related links

• This is the type of cool stuff you’d get to see if you lived on Mars
• You can even ski there, maybe!
• No wonder this kid REALLY wants to go to Mars

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Ian Chant