The results of Hera's flyby could ultimately tell us whether Deimos is a captured asteroid or made from debris from a giant impact on Mars.

Deimos is about 15,000 miles from Mars. Scientists have previously speculated that it may actually be a piece of asteroid, not a moon. Hera got as close as 1,000 kilometers, or about 620 miles ...

Then there's a more recent, third possibility, which is that they could be the remains of a larger asteroid that was torn apart. Identifying the materials from which Phobos and Deimos are made ...

On 12 March 2025, the Hera spacecraft used Mars's gravity to accelerate its journey to the Didymos/Dimorphos binary asteroid system. The probe's camera system, developed and built in Germany, captured ...

Like our moon, Deimos is tidally locked to Mars, meaning the same side always faces the planet—the only side visible to rovers on the Martian surface. The only way to see Deimos’ far side up close is ...

The spacecraft captured the Red Planet and its enigmatic moons, Deimos and Phobos, marking its first deep-space imaging ...

For a few weeks in January and February this year, asteroid 2024 YR4 had us all worried. Shortly after it was discovered, astronomers calculated that the asteroid had a 1-in-83 chance of hitting ...