Daily Curiosityby Erudico

Science General · Question

The planet Mars has two moons orbiting it.

Answer

True

The story behind the answer

True. Mars has two small, irregular moons: Phobos and Deimos, discovered in 1877 by Asaph Hall. Likely captured asteroids or debris from an ancient impact, they’re tiny compared to Earth’s Moon—about 22 km (Phobos) and 12 km (Deimos) across—giving them their “potato” shapes.

Phobos orbits very close to Mars in just 7.7 hours and is slowly spiraling inward; it may break apart or crash into Mars in tens of millions of years. Deimos, farther out, orbits in about 30 hours and is drifting away. Their names come from Greek myth—Fear (Phobos) and Dread (Deimos), companions of Ares/Mars. Memory tip: Mars marches with two tiny “terror twins”—Phobos (fear, fast and near) and Deimos (dread, distant and slow).

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