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Deimos Transit - Viking Orbiter 1
Mars' tiny moon Deimos in the skies over Arabia Terra, imaged by Viking Orbiter 1 on January 2, 1978. This image was made possible by the spacecraft's highly elongated orbit, which took it well above Deimos' orbital altitude of 23,500 km. Image sets like this helped track the long-term orbital motion of Deimos, as the exact location of the spacecraft was known at all times, allowing Deimos' position to be calculated through trigonometry.
This was a single-color observation, with imaging data only collected using red light. I have artificially colorized this image using a process to estimate Mars' appearance in blue and green light from the spectral properties of the light and dark and materials.
Image Credit: NASA / JPL / USGS / Aster Cowart
Deimos Transit - Viking Orbiter 1
Mars' tiny moon Deimos in the skies over Arabia Terra, imaged by Viking Orbiter 1 on January 2, 1978. This image was made possible by the spacecraft's highly elongated orbit, which took it well above Deimos' orbital altitude of 23,500 km. Image sets like this helped track the long-term orbital motion of Deimos, as the exact location of the spacecraft was known at all times, allowing Deimos' position to be calculated through trigonometry.
This was a single-color observation, with imaging data only collected using red light. I have artificially colorized this image using a process to estimate Mars' appearance in blue and green light from the spectral properties of the light and dark and materials.
Image Credit: NASA / JPL / USGS / Aster Cowart