Mangalyaan captures images of Mars moon
TWO MOONS
NEW DELHI: India’s maiden spacecraft to Mars, Mangalyaan, has captured the image of Phobos, the larger and closer of the planet’s two natural satellites.
Both moons of Mars were discovered in 1877.
Small and irregularly shaped, with a mean radius of 11 km, Phobos is seven times bigger than Mars’s outer moon, Deimos.
“The larger of the two Martian moons, Phobos, is seen travelling west to east over Mars in its typical orbit. The images were taken from an altitude of 66,275 km,” said Isro’s Facebook page on Tuesday.
On October 7, Mangalyaan had send another full disc image Phobos and Deimos, the two moons of Mars were discovered in 1877
Small and irregularly shaped, with a mean radius of 11 km, Phobos is seven times bigger than Mars’s outer moon, Deimos
On October 7, Mangalyaan captured the image of Phobos.
of Mars, taken by the Mars Color Camera, from an altitude of 66,543 km.
The spacecraft had beamed its first photos of Mars’ cratermarked surface a day after India successfully put the probe into the red planet’s orbit.
Shortly afterwards, Isro had uploaded regional dust storm activities over the planet’s northern hemisphere, captured by Mars Color Camera.
The image was taken from an altitude of 74,500 km from the surface of Mars.
India joined an exclusive global club of deep space explorers on September 24 when the indigenously-made spacecraft successfully slipped into the orbit around Mars after a 10-month journey on a relatively shoestring budget.