The red planet Mars, fourth from Earth's sun, has two little moons: Phobos and Deimos. Neither is anything like Earth's moon: small and irregularly shaped, astronomers have long believed that they are more likely captured asteroids, pulled into the Martian orbit by the red planet's gravity and then kept there indefinitely as makeshift moons. That makes sense, given Mars' proximity to the Asteroid Belt.
Yet a new report by Hope, an orbiter sent around the red planet by the United Arab Emirates, offered the first highly detailed image of Deimos — and the data from Hope has caused scientists to reevaluate that assumption.
