Phobos

Great image, you could almost reach out and touch it...well if you had long arms, 6000 km +....

The very large crater on the right has a "history".

It is Called "Stickney" after the wife of Asaph Hall who discovered Phobos.

The story goes that his wife Angeline urged him persevere in observing when he was falling asleep at his giant Alvin Clarke refractor.
Stickney was her maiden name.
Picture of her here:

maia.usno.navy.mil/women_history/hall.html

Carl Sagan had it named after her.

Incidentally Phobos has great connections to Ireland.
Of the fiftteen named craters on Phobos eight of the names are taken from Johnathan Swift’s “Gulliver’s Travels” which was written in Dublin in 1726.

The two moons of Mars were predicted in Gullivers Travels 151 years before Asaph Hall discovered them.

Quote from Gulliver’s Travels about the astronomers of Laputa:

They have likewise discovered two lesser stars, or satellites, which revolve about Mars, whereof the innermost is distant from the center of the primary planet exactly three of his diameters, and the outermost five; the former revolves in the space of ten hours, and the latter in twenty-one and a half; so that the squares of their periodical times are very near in the same proportion with the cubes of their distance from the centre of Mars, which evidently shows them to be governed by the same law of gravitation that influences the other heavenly bodies.

Another amazing photo of Stickney Crater on APOD! :shock:
antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap080410.html

Clear skies
Mike

:shock:
Class images.
Are those lines ejecta rays or wha?