While on a flyby of Mars, Hera was able to use three of its imaging instruments to capture images of Deimos, the smaller of Mars' two moons, the ESA said. Deimos is about 15,000 miles from Mars.

The operators of the European Space Agency’s Hera spacecraft were bewitched by the sci-fi aesthetics of the pictures. “We were waiting with impatience to get these images,” said Patrick ...

Hera comes to about 5,000 km from the surface of Mars during its flyby. It will also image Deimos, the smaller of Mars's two moons, from a minimum 1000 km away (while venturing as close as 300 km).

The results of Hera's flyby could ultimately tell us whether Deimos is a captured asteroid or made from debris from a giant impact on Mars. Europe's Hera mission, on its way to the Didymos ...