Tiny Mars moon Deimos gets a rare close-up, thanks to Europe's Hera asteroid probe.

Europe's Hera mission, on its way to the Didymos–Dimorphos double asteroid system, has performed a close flyby of Mars, receiving a crucial gravitational slingshot, testing some of its instruments, and gaining new images of Mars' little-seen moon Deimos, which could answer questions about the origin of the Red Planet's moons.

The flyby took place on Wednesday (March 12), and the European Space Agency presented the images during a webcast today. The images presented show Deimos set against a backdrop of the Red Planet below it as Hera flew within 3,100 miles (5,000 kilometers) of Mars and just 621 miles (1,000 kilometers) of Deimos.

Mars has two moons, named Phobos and Deimos, but because Phobos is closer to Mars, it has been previously imaged by other spacecraft.

What was also different about this flyby was that the side of Deimos that was imaged. Deimos is tidally locked to Mars, meaning that like Earth's moon, it continually shows the same face to the Red Planet. Most previous images of the small, 7.7-mile-wide (12.4 kilometers) Deimos have shown Mars-facing side. Before now, only the United Arab Emirates' Hope mission, which arrived at Mars in 2021, had seen the side of Deimos that faces out into space.

Source: www.space.com

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