Check out: Mars moon looks exactly like a potato

The image has been shared on the space administration’s official Instagram account.

American space agency NASA has recently shared an image of a Mars moon that looks like a potato. The image has been shared on the space administration’s official Instagram account.

“You say potato, we say Mars Moon,” the National Aeronautics and Space Administration wrote as a caption.

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Giving out more details about the moon, NASA wrote, “This is an image of Phobos, the largest of Mars’s two raggedy moons, as seen by the @UAHiRISE camera aboard our Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter spacecraft.”

The picture, which was taken from 6,800 kilometres (4,225 miles) above the surface, shows a pockmarked celestial body with a large impact basin called Stickney crater. The grooves seen along its side could be the result of tidal forces – the mutual gravitational pull of the planet and the moon, NASA said.

Scientists have also calculated that tiny Phobos is nearing Mars at a rate of 1.8 metres (6 feet) every century, meaning it will either crash into the planet in 50 million years or break up into a ring of debris.⁣

Phobos was discovered in 1877 by American astronomer Asaph Hall, and one popular theory is that it might be a captured asteroid. In Greek mythology, Phobos and Deimos are the twin sons of Ares (Mars in Roman mythology).⁣⁣

The Instagram post quickly got the comments section loaded with surprised reactions.

“Sooooo…can we officially change its name to Sweet Baby Potato or….nah?(sic)” an Instagram user wrote. “It’s a mootato(sic)” and “It looks like it’s made of some kind of metal,” were some of the other comments for the post.

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