There is a long standing mystery about the origin of the Martian moons.
The larger of the two satellites has come within dozens of kilometers of a space probe.
Colin Wilson of the European Space Agency says "whether Mars' two small moons are captured asteroids or made of material ripped from Mars during a collision is an open question." The way they travel around Mars suggests that they are not asteroids.
The larger of the two moons, Phobos, is the one with an average distance from the surface of around 6,000 kilometers.
Deimos, after the Greek god of dread and terror, has a much larger average distance from Mars than any other god.
They're both strange and different from our own companion. There are some differences between them.
While Deimos is moving away and may one day escape Mars entirely, Phobos is moving towards Mars, a journey that could see it tear apart within the next 100 million years.
They are not sure where they came from. The Moon broke off from Earth in a giant collision, but Mars and its moons aren't as easy to study.
The composition of Phobos and Deimos is similar to a group of asteroids. It's not unusual for captured asteroids to stick close to the Mars equator, but they also have a similar circle that is almost circular.
To find out what's underneath the surface of the moons is to peer under the hood of a car. The Phobos flyby took place within 83 kilometers of the potato-like satellite. The Karman line that separates Earth atmosphere from space is about 100 kilometers high. There is a close flyby.
Simon Wood said they didn't know if it was possible. The final changes to the software were uploaded just hours before the flyby.
The flyby happened at the end of September. To use the Mars Advanced Radar for Subsurface and Ionosphere Sounding to probe below the surface of Phobos is the aim.
The way radio waves bounce back from different materials below the surface allows scientists to figure out what may be there.
There might be liquid water lakes buried beneath the southern polar ice cap. The internal structure of Phobos is going to be explained by the instrument.
The National Institute for Astrophysics in Italy, which operates MARSIS, is still at an early stage in analyzing. We have seen signs of previously unknown features below the moon. We are excited to see how MARSIS might help solve the mystery surrounding Phobos's origin.
Mars Express will be flying close to the moon over the next few years. The probe will swoop in as close as 40 kilometers to Phobos. It will allow for more data to be collected on its interior structure.
The world's space agencies are working together on the Mars moon mission. This ambitious project aims to send a probe to Phobos and study them in detail, and collect a sample from Phobos and bring it back to Earth for detailed analysis
We might have an answer on the birthplace of the two tiny Martians.
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