The moon and planets all actually move from west to east; the apparent reverse of this being caused by the more rapid movement of the earth on its axis, giving the other bodies the appearance of moving from east to west. If, however, our moon is closely watched, and its position with regard to a fixed star carefully noted, it will be found that in the course of a short time its real movement has been eastward, and that its position with regard to the fixed star has changed, although the revolution of the earth has appeared to carry both westward.
Phobos is 36 miles in diameter. Its actual period of revolution round the planet is 7 hours and 39 minutes, but, owing to the movement of Mars on its axis in the same direction, it appears to take a few minutes over 11 hours to complete one revolution.
Near the equator, Phobos is seen above the horizon for about 41⁄4 hours, and is below it about 63⁄4 hours. According as the place from which it is viewed is farther from the equator so will the time of visibility of Phobos be decreased, until when latitude 69° is reached in either hemisphere, it will cease to become visible at all. This is owing to its nearness to the planet; and, Mars being small, the curve of its sphere is sharp, so that the horizon is more limited than on the earth, and the satellite is shut out from view anywhere above latitude 69° by the body of the planet.
Another peculiarity is that, when in the zenith, Phobos appears twice as large in area as it does when near the horizon, and notwithstanding its very small size, Phobos appears rather larger than our moon, because it is so near to the planet.
The length of the Martian "night" is about 12 hours and 20 minutes, and during this very short time Phobos may be seen to rise in the west, set in the east, and rise again once more in the west. Consequently it will be evident that it must travel very rapidly across the sky. It really moves over a space of 321⁄2° in a single hour—a great contrast to the slow and stately movement of our moon, which only passes over half a degree in an hour.
Moreover, Phobos may be seen to rise as a new moon, pass through its phases to the full, wane, and again become new, all in the course of a single Martian night; or it may be seen twice full and once new during the same time.
Even this does not exhaust the list of phenomena, for, being so close to Mars, Phobos is very frequently eclipsed by the shadow of the planet. On the other hand, the sun may be eclipsed by Phobos something like fourteen hundred times in the course of a Martian year; and, as already mentioned, the other satellite is often occulted by Phobos—sometimes when both may be only at the half full phase, and these occultations look very peculiar.
Deimos, being only 10 miles in diameter and about 12,500 miles from the surface of the planet, does not give rise to so many phenomena as the nearer satellite: still they are very numerous.
It revolves round the planet in 301⁄4 hours, but appears to take 1311⁄2 hours to do so, being above the horizon about 60 hours, and below it nearly 72 hours. These are the times as seen from the equator; but, as in the case of Phobos, the farther the place is from the equator the shorter is the period that Deimos is seen above the horizon, until, when latitude 82° is reached in either hemisphere, it ceases to become visible at all.
Our moon, being so very much more distant from our earth, could be seen from both the poles.