Potato in space? Nasa’s photo of Martian moon Phobos amazes internet

NEW DELHI: Nasa is again trending on social media with its recent post on ‘space potato‘. Yes, you read it right, a potato-look-alike Phobos, Mars’s lumpy moon, is in space.
Sharing the photos of ‘space potato’, Nasa on Instagram said, “Space potato Phobos is the larger of Mars’ two moons—but it’s still only about 17 x 14 x 11 miles (27 by 22 by 18 kilometers) in diameter.Because Phobos is so small, its gravity isn’t strong enough to pull it into a sphere (like Earth’s Moon), giving it its lumpy shape.”

It further added, “Phobos is also on a collision course with Mars—though it’ll take a while to get there. It’s nearing the Red Planet at a rate of six feet (1.8 meters) every hundred years. At that rate, the moon will either crash into Mars in 50 million years or break up into a ring.”
Nasa also said that the image was taken by the High-Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, which has been studying Mars since 2006.

According to Nasa, the Martian moon Phobos is brownish-red and lumpy, pocketed with several craters of all sizes. A white patch is visible next to the Stickney crater, a particularly large crater on its right side.

Since Nasa posted this photo, people have been going crazy over the photo. One of the users commented, “Who plant potatoes in space?”

“Nasa is very serious. Nasa: We found potato in space,” another user commented.
While another one said, “Well kid, we made it to space.”