Green and red glasses at the ready, people – the European Space Agency’s Mars Express has sent back the highest resolution pictures ever taken of Phobos, one of two Martian moons, and some of them are in stereo.

They’re great pics, and I don’t mean to put a downer on things ESA, but they look much the same as the pictures you made in 2004. Then in April this year, NASA’s HiRISE camera took some good snaps as well.

Why not look between all three and try and spot the difference? I confess I struggled. No doubt to the scientists the improvement in resolution is crucial – and I’m sure it is going to help the Russian’s amusingly named Phobos-Grunt sample return mission, due for launch in 2009, because with these new images they’ve managed to pinpoint potential landing sites in close detail.

Maybe I’m getting old and jaded by space pictures, but that said I can recommend a visit to Nature News’s slideshow of images marking NASA’s 50th birthday earlier this week.

Picture credit: ESA/ DLR/ FU Berlin (G. Neukum)