Mars will ring in the future due to the destruction of one of its
moons, Phobos, within 20 to 40 million years, according to research
published today in "Nature Geoscience".
According to the analysis of Benjamin Black and Tushar Mittal, of the University of California (Berkeley), Phobos will approach both Mars will disintegrate, but their remains are likely to form a ring that will remain between one and 100 million years.
Mars has two small moons, Phobos and Deimos, which orbit the neighboring planet to Earth a short distance from its surface. Both have irregular shapes and a diameter of less than 30 kilometers.
According to the analysis of Benjamin Black and Tushar Mittal, of the University of California (Berkeley), Phobos will approach both Mars will disintegrate, but their remains are likely to form a ring that will remain between one and 100 million years.
Mars has two small moons, Phobos and Deimos, which orbit the neighboring planet to Earth a short distance from its surface. Both have irregular shapes and a diameter of less than 30 kilometers.
Phobos, the larger of the two, orbits at about 6000 km altitude and getting closer to Mars in its orbit spiral. For comparison, Earth's moon has a diameter of almost 3,500 kilometers and around our planet at a distance of about 400,000 kilometers.
Because its orbit spiral, Phobos will be destroyed. Or it will crash into Mars or the attractive forces will destroy the planet in its orbit. Their fate depends on its composition. Using observations and geotechnical model, Black and Mittal calculated the consistency of the satellite.
According to their estimates, Phobos is not stable and probably will be destroyed within 20 to 40 million years. Then it will be so close to Mars that gravity will draw the bottom of the moon much more than the top, located farther. Scientists believe that the satellite will not stand this pressure and break.
In the same way they may have been destroyed in the past moons of other planets in our solar system, the experts write.