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The long, shallow grooves lining the surface of Phobos are likely early signs of the structural failure that will ultimately destroy this moon of Mars.
“We think that Phobos has already started to fail, and the first sign of this failure is the production of these grooves,” said Terry Hurford of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.
Phobos was thought to be more-or-less solid all the way through. When the tidal forces were calculated, the stresses were too weak to fracture a solid moon of that size.
The recent thinking, however, is that the interior of Phobos could be a rubble pile, barely holding together.
The same fate may await Neptune’s moon Triton, which is also slowly falling inward and has a similarly fractured surface.
The recent thinking, however, is that the interior of Phobos could be a rubble pile, barely holding together.
Scientists expect the moon to be pulled apart in 30 to 50 million years.
originally posted by: TheConstruKctionofLight
a reply to: rajas
The recent thinking, however, is that the interior of Phobos could be a rubble pile, barely holding together.
Are all the major moons of the solar systems artificial - hollow? perhaps put into orbit to enable life to be sustained.
Whoever seeded this planet sure had some technology behind it.
originally posted by: FamCore
a reply to: rajas
If this does happen, will there be any chance that the remnants of phobos could become dangerous asteroids that could threaten Earth?
originally posted by: TheConstruKctionofLight
a reply to: rajas
The recent thinking, however, is that the interior of Phobos could be a rubble pile, barely holding together.
Are all the major moons of the solar systems artificial - hollow? perhaps put into orbit to enable life to be sustained.
Whoever seeded this planet sure had some technology behind it.