Phobos

Phobos

Phobos, aptly enough, was in mythology the son of Ares. What’s peculiar is that Phobos is the name of a moon of Mars — which is mixing a Greek son of a Roman god. If they’d stuck with the Roman nomenclature, this moon should be named Timor.

This is all moot, of course, because of Phobos’s doomed orbit — millions of years from now it will be destroyed. Unless some far-off descendents of Earthlings (note I said Earthlings rather than humans ;) are able to save it for old-time’s sake.

That the moon Phobos is “doomed” might be somewhat ironic, due to it also being the site of certain secret experiments that result in a demonic invasion.

The Astronomy Picture of the Day for 2005-09-17 was an awesome picture, The Shadow of Phobos, showing the moon’s shadow on the surface of its parent planet, as taken by the Mars Global Surveyor.