# @nasa on Instagram

- **Type:** Image
- **Original URL:** https://www.instagram.com/p/C8fcypiPaL9
- **Gondola URL:** https://gondola.cc/posts/19521542-nasa-instagram
- **Thumbnail:** https://img.gondola.cc/tr:w-,h-,fo-auto/thumbnails/ec573c7c8a.jpg
- **Posted:** 2024-06-21T20:37:15.000+00:00
- **Account Owner:** NASA (@NASA) — https://gondola.cc/NASA

## Caption

Space potato 🥔

Phobos is the larger of Mars' two moons—but it's still only about 17 x 14 x 11 miles (27 by 22 by 18 kilometers) in diameter. Because Phobos is so small, its gravity isn't strong enough to pull it into a sphere (like Earth's Moon), giving it its lumpy shape.

Phobos is also on a collision course with Mars—though it'll take a while to get there. It's nearing the Red Planet at a rate of six feet (1.8 meters) every hundred years. At that rate, the moon will either crash into Mars in 50 million years or break up into a ring. 

This image was taken by the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera on our Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, which has been studying Mars since 2006.

Image description: The Martian moon Phobos stands against the darkness of space. The moon is brownish-red and lumpy, pocketed with a number of craters of all sizes. A white patch is visible next to Stickney crater, a particularly large crater on its right side. 

Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona

#NASA #Space #Universe #Astrophotography #Mars #Phobos #Potato

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## Tags

nasa, astrophotography, universe, space, mars, potato, phobos

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