According to Space.com, NASA’s Mars Curiosity rover has captured a spectacular video of a Martian moonrise. The video reveals Phobos, gouged and almost smashed into smithereens by a massive impact crater, rising high into the sky. Space.com reports that the video represents a collection of 86 photos captured by the rover’s navigation camera.

“You asked for the moon. Here it is! See footage from my Navcam of Mars’ moon Phobos rising,” NASA said via Twitter.

NASA says that Mars’ largest moon is 27 by 22 by 18 km in diameter and has been smacked by thousands of meteorites over the years. The space agency adds that Phobos circles Mars thee times a day and that it is nearing the Red Planet at a rate of 1.8 meters every hundred years, which means that the moon will impact Mars in 50 million years or break up into a ring.

According to NASA, Phobos has extreme temperature variations. High temperatures, for example, were detected at 25 degrees Fahrenheit, while low temperatures were detected at -170 degrees Fahrenheit, which means that the climate on the dark side of Phobos is more harsh than a night in Antarctica. Scientists believe that the intense cold is the result of fine dust on Phobos’ surface, which stops it from retaining heat.

Curiosity’s Martian moonrise video is one of several efforts by NASA to gather data on Phobos. According to Space.com, Curiosity took a photo of Phobos as it crossed the face of the Sun.

Curiosity is not the only NASA rover making fantastic discoveries on the Red Planet. Earlier this month, the space agency’s Opportunity rover reached its halfway point in its trip from Cape York to Salander Point, the site of its next science mission. When Opportunity reaches Salander Point, it will have traveled 1.2 miles. In total, NASA says that Opportunity has traveled more than 22 miles on the Red Planet, a U.S. off-Earth driving record.

There’s a possibility that Opportunity will eventually set the worldwide off-Earth driving record, a mark set by the Soviet moon rover Lunokhod 2 in 1973.  To do so, Opportunity must log approximately 26 miles on the Red Planet.

According to Space.com, today is the 10th anniversary of Opportunity’s blast from Earth with the now-defunct rover Spirit. The rovers were launched in 2003, and touched down on the Martian surface in January 2004.

Will Opportunity set the worldwide off-planet driving record? What do you think of the Martian moonrise video below? Share your thoughts in the comments section.