Explanation:
Where on this moon would you land?
The moon pictured above is not Earth's moon but
Phobos,
the closest moon to the planet Mars.
Phobos is so close to Mars that it is expected to break up and crash into the red planet within the next 100 million years.
Earlier just this year, however,
ESA's
Mars Express
mission took detailed images of the area surrounding Phobos' South Pole.
Visible on the small moon's
unusually dark surface are many
circular craters, long chains of craters, and strange streaks.
Large Stickney Crater, which looms on the far right, was also visible in the
corresponding North Polar image taken last year.
This and other
similar images of Phobos are so
detailed, resolving items even 10-meters across, that they are useful for examining
proposed landing sites of the future Phobos-Grunt mission.
The Russian
Phobos-Grunt robotic spacecraft is scheduled to launch toward
Phobos later this year and return surface samples in 2014.
Vote:
Astronomy Picture of the Year 2010
