A giant new moon has just been identified in the solar system: the moon Mars. But unfortunately it was broken, the main ruins today are Phobos and Deimos.
If the “neighbor” Jupiter repeatedly closes on Earth, showing the 4 most massive moons over dozens of moons, then Mars closer to us appears alone. A study just published in the scientific journal Nature Astronomy explains why.
Dr Amir Khan, a researcher at the Institute of Physics at the University of Zurich and the Institute of Geophysics at ETH Zurich (Switzerland), said his team used data from NASA’s InSight mission to create a template. New computer simulations confirm that the two current moons, Phobos and Deimos, originated from the disintegration of a much larger moon 1 to 2.7 billion years ago.
These two potato-shaped moons orbit Mars in a synchronous rotation with an inclination of only 0.01 and 0.92 degrees from the equatorial plane of the planet. They have always intrigued astronomers because they look more like asteroids than natural moons. Many people suspect that these are just asteroids that were “kidnapped” as it approached Mars and affected by the planet’s gravity.
But the new model shows that these two unusual moons seem to have crossed paths in the past – in the same place, from the same origin.
The “mother body” of Phobos and Deimos could be as large as the giant moons of the solar system, such as the Earth’s moon and some of Jupiter’s moons. According to Sci-News, this ancient moon may have been struck by another celestial body and shattered.
The moon Phobos itself is also expected to disappear within the next 39 million years, when it hits its home planet. His body can transform into a “ring” that surrounds the planet, similar to the magic rings around Saturn.
