![Mars and it's two moons, Phobos and Deimos](https://images.newscientist.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/26121127/SEI_196881993.jpg?width=1200)
Mars has two irregularly shaped moons, an inner moon named Phobos and an outer moon named Deimos
NASA/JPL-Caltech/GSFC/Univ. of Arizona
The two moons of Mars may once have been a single comet that was ensnared and split by the planet – and an upcoming mission could find out for certain.
How Mars got its two moons, Phobos and Deimos, is a bit of a mystery. They are small, 27 and 15 kilometres across respectively, and both orbit around the planet’s equator. Astronomers have suggested that they may have formed after a collision on Mars’s…