Millions of years from now, Mars may have ring like Saturn because of the destruction of its moon, Phobos, which then forms a ring of dust.
"One of the main factors for Phobos crash into Mars or lose power. When Phobos is too weak to withstand the pressure of the waves, we think it's going to break," says a graduate student at the University of California, Tushar Mittal, who is also one of the authors of the study in the journal Nature Geoscience, on LiveScience.
An artist's impression of a ring around Mars, formed by its tiny moon Phobos. (Picture from: http://bit.ly/1Opg6xE) |
As known that Mars has two moons called Phobos and Deimos, are named after the children of the god Ares, the Greek counterpart to Mars, the Roman god of war. Phobos circling the Red Planet rapidly and rises every day Mars. The moon moved closer to its parent, 2 meters in a century, previous studies estimated that the moon will crash into the surface of Mars in 30-50 million years.
Phobos, moon of Mars, visible crossed the orbit of the sun at sol (Martian days) 37 or September 13, 2012 in a handout photo from the NASA's Martian rover Curiosity. (Picture from: http://bit.ly/1YCu426) |
However, after studying the pressure on Phobos Mars, Tushar Mittal and Benjamin Black, a graduate researcher of University of California Berkeley seeing different conditions: Phobos will be destroyed by the gravity of Mars.
On Earth, the Moon's gravity causes a tidal wave and tidal rise in the sea. Although there is no sea in the Moon, the Earth's gravity on the Moon is also called a "power surge".
Phobos, and the other moons in the solar system, also felt the wave of its parent planet. After comparing with several satellites, Black and Mittal found that Phobos is made of porous rock which damaged up to the inside.
After studying the Martian pressure waves to Phobos, they discovered that the moon will be broken within 20-40 million years ago to form a ring of dust around the Red planet. *** [EKA | FROM VARIOUS SOURCES | LIVESCIENCE]
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