Mars Moon Seen in Vivid Detail

April 10, 2008 -- Taking a break from scouting landing sites for NASA's next Mars rover, a sharp-eyed orbiter took a look at the planet's tiny inner moon Phobos and uncovered unprecedented details about the potato-shaped world.

Scientists are keen to dissect the images to better understand the moon's origins, but the pictures, which were released on Wednesday, were pieced together with aesthetics in mind.

Blue-green, red and near-infrared filters on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter's (MRO's) high-resolution camera were used to produce three-dimensional images of Phobos and its most prominent feature, a 5.5-mile diameter crater, named Stickney.

Scientists believe that the asteroid or meteoroid impact that formed Stickney nearly broke Phobos apart. The MRO images show the crater's rim ringed with different material than the surrounding vista.

"Based on analogy with material on our own moon, [it] could mean that the material is fresher, or hasn't been exposed to space as long as the rest of Phobos' surface has," said Nathan Bridges, an MRO scientist at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif.