The European Space Agency (ESA) is Europe’s gateway to space. Its mission is to shape the development of Europe’s space capability and ensure that investment in space continues to deliver benefits to the citizens of Europe and the world.
Find out more about space activities in our 23 Member States, and understand how ESA works together with their national agencies, institutions and organisations.
Exploring our Solar System and unlocking the secrets of the Universe
Go to topicProtecting life and infrastructure on Earth and in orbit
Go to topicUsing space to benefit citizens and meet future challenges on Earth
Go to topicMaking space accessible and developing the technologies for the future
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The locations of Mars, its moons and Mars Express when the images were taken.
ESA’s Mars Express has been circling Mars in an elliptical polar orbit since 25 December 2003 at an angle of roughly 87° to the equatorial plane. This orbit brings the spacecraft just 240 kilometres from the planet’s surface thrice a day. The furthest distance of the orbiter from Mars is about 10,000 kilometres.
Phobos is a potato-shaped moon, 26.8 × 22.4 × 18.4 km in size. It circles the planet in an almost circular equatorial orbit at a distance of 6000 km. Deimos, which has dimensions of 15.0 × 12.2 × 10.4 km, is the smaller of the two moons. It orbits Mars at a distance of roughly 20 000 km.
During the almost six-year long Mars Express mission, the geometrical configuration of the two moons relative to the probe on 5 November 2009 presented a unique opportunity to capture the moons in a sequence of images. Phobos and Deimos were directly in the field of view of the orbiter’s HRSC (High Resolution Stereo Camera).