A new study published in The Planetary Science Journal suggests that Mars is treating its moon Phobos as hostile and slowly destroying the moon.
The report, cited in a report published on the website of Slash Gearadds that the long horizontal cuts on the surface of Phobos are actually deep fissures, which gradually deepen and widen over time.
Scientists say the Martian moon “danced” at the Roche fluid limit on Mars, which means that as close as something in space, like a moon, comet or satellite, can reach the inner planet farthest from the Sun without being torn apart by the planet’s own gravity.
However, they add that Phobos is “gradually spiraling in” And because the moon is actually a giant clump of airless, compacted earth, it may be being pulled at the seams as it goes, a phenomenon known as “tidal orbital decay”.
Before they thought it was the impact of an asteroid
These long, sediment-filled gullies were originally theorized to be the scars of an asteroid impact at some point. This asteroid crash is also credited with creating “Stickney,” a six-mile-wide crater on Phobos’s surface.
But because this moon orbits more than 60 times closer to the surface of Mars than our Moon orbits to the surface of Earth, Mars could be the culprit of the lens but almost certain destruction of Phobos.
The new research used computer simulations to find that a more intact layer somewhere below Phobos’s surface could be what holds the moon together, and consequently, is slowly cracking.
When the satellite crosses the threshold of the gravitational pull of Mars, which is stronger than the internal gravity that holds the moon together, the researchers predict that Phobos will fragment and its pieces will continue to orbit the planet in a belt similar to Saturn’s rings..