The Mars Colour Camera (MCC) onboard ISRO’s Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM) has captured the image of Phobos, the closest and biggest moon of Mars.

Try this question from CSP 2017:

Q.Which region of Mars has a densely packed river deposit indicating this planet had water 3.5 billion years ago?

(a) Aeolis Dorsa (b) Tharsis (c) Olympus Mons (d) Hellas

About Phobos

• Phobos is the innermost and larger of the two natural satellites of Mars, the other being Deimos.
• Both moons were discovered in 1877 by American astronomer Asaph Hall.
• Phobos is a small, irregularly shaped object with a mean radius of 11 km and is seven times as massive as the outer moon, Deimos.
• Phobos is largely believed to be made up of carbonaceous chondrites.
• The violent phase that Phobos has encountered is seen in the large section gouged out from a past collision (Stickney crater) and bouncing ejecta.

Back2Basics: Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM)

• The MOM also called Mangalyaan is a space probe orbiting Mars since 24 September 2014. It was launched on 5 November 2013 by the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO).
• It aims at studying the Martian surface and mineral composition as well as scans its atmosphere for methane (an indicator of life on Mars).
• It is India’s first interplanetary mission and it made it the fourth space agency to reach Mars, after Roscosmos, NASA, and the European Space Agency.
• It made India the first Asian nation to reach Martian orbit and the first nation in the world to do so on its maiden attempt.
• It was initially meant to last six months, but subsequently, ISRO had said it had enough fuel for it to last “many years.”

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