--- title: "NASA Rover’s New, Gorgeous Time Lapse Spots Tiny Martian Moon" description: "NASA's Mars Perseverance rover has peered into the sky for an epic time lapse — and caught the Red Planet's tiny moon Deimos." date: "2021-08-20" modified: "2021-08-20" authors: - name: "Victor Tangermann" job_title: "Senior Editor" link: "https://futurism.com/authors/victor" url: "https://futurism.com/the-byte/nasa-mars-rover-time-lapse-moon-deimos" categories: - "Astronomy" - "Moon" - "NASA" - "Space" tags: - "deimos" - "mars" - "martian moons" - "NASA" - "perseverance" - "the digest" --- # NASA Rover’s New, Gorgeous Time Lapse Spots Tiny Martian Moon ![NASA's Mars Perseverance rover has peered into the sky for an epic time lapse — and caught the Red Planet's tiny moon Deimos.]() *\Image: NASA\* ## Moon Spotting NASA's Mars Perseverance rover has peered into the sky for an epic time lapse — and caught something amazing. The six-wheeled rover managed to capture the tiny Martian moon Deimos in the short clip, a brief and unique glimpse at the much-tinier worlds orbiting the Red Planet. https://twitter.com/NASAPersevere/status/1428760517414252547 "Sky watching is fun no matter where you are," the rover's Twitter account wrote. "I took this short time lapse movie to watch for clouds, and caught something else: look closely and you’ll see Deimos, one of two moons of Mars." First [discovered in 1877]() by astronomer Asaph Hall, Deimos is Mars's smaller moon, measuring only about 7.8 miles in diameter, [roughly the size of Brooklyn](). Phobos is much larger with a diameter of 14 miles. Both are among the smallest moons in the entire solar system, making them tricky to spot — even from the Martian surface, even if they're orbiting their planet *extremely* closely. Deimos is only 3,700 miles from the Martian surface at any one point, making it the moon with the closest orbit in our solar system, [according to NASA](). Fortunately, we may soon have a very close look. The news comes after the Japanese space agency JAXA [announced]() in February 2020 that it has greenlit a sample return mission to Phobos. It'll also spend parts of its three years in deep space surveying Deimos. Both moons orbit the Red Planet surrounded by a cloud of left over debris. In fact, scientists believe Phobos will eventually be eroded over time and [form a dusty ring around Mars](). That's because Phobos is slowly spiraling inward towards the Martian surface. The planet's tidal forces will then rip the moon apart — but that'll only happen some 50 million years from now. **More on a very different Deimos:** *[Elon Musk: SpaceX Will Be Launching From Floating Platforms by 2022]()* ## Author I've been at Futurism since 2017, where my role has evolved to encompass design, writing, and increasingly editing. I've always been fascinated by space exploration and advanced transportation, which I've leaned into by interviewing luminaries in those fields while closely following the dimensions of policy and regulation that allow next-generation projects to succeed -- or, sometimes, to fail. I'm also keenly interested in the effects of generative AI on society, policies, and democratic institutions, as well as clean energy, physics and biology, and the vagaries of tech leadership. My work for Futurism has been cited by publications including Ars Technica, Gizmodo, PC Magazine, Jalopnik, Fox News, and the New York Post. I spent my childhood living in locations including Manila, the Philippines, and Geneva, Switzerland, attended McGill University, and now live in Toronto, Canada. Before Futurism I worked at AskMen and a small photography studio. In my free time, I'm an avid gardener, foodie, and craft beer lover, as well as a maker of artisanal hot pepper sauces. I have a magnificent dog named Freida. ### Author social links [Bluesky]()