Mars’s moon Phobos was snapped from close up when the European Space Agency’s Mars Express probe flew by a couple of weeks ago.

The pictures are now out and show Phobos to be the splendid big lump of rock that we might have expected.

The snaps were taken with Mars Express’s high resolution stereo camera, which means, yes, you can see Phobos in 3-D. If only I’d kept my 3-D glasses after going to see Alice in Wonderland at the weekend.

The pictures show the landing site for the beautifully named Russian led- mission Phobos-Grunt, which will head for Phobos in 2011 to scoop up a soil sample and bring it back for analysis.

Image: ESA