A new study suggests that Mars’ two moons – Phobos and Deimos – came from a common sphere, challenging the existing knowledge of the twin branches.
For a long time, Phobos and Deimos – named for the sons of Ares (Mars) Man and Panic respectively – were thought to be asteroids captured by the Red Planet – and have been Mars has been circling since then. Moreover, these branches look very different from the Earth’s own Moon, with ours being larger and more spherical in physical features.
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The recent study titled “Dynamical Evidence for Phobos and Deimos as the Remains of a Common Disperser,” which appears in the journal Nature Astronomy reveals recent evidence as to why the theory would not taken of Phobos and Deimos right between.
Using geophysical data and models created from the lunar orbital movement, researchers traced back billions of years ago – discovering that Phobos and Deimos were in the same place. This basically suggests that they both belonged to one more thing at the same time in the past.
(Image: Giuseppe Donatiello via Wikimedia Commons)
Remains of a missing moon
The nature of these two moons has bothered researchers since they were first discovered back in 1877. Phobos measures about 14 miles (22 kilometers) across, and Deimos is a little more than half the size of the moon. this size. The new study suggests that, between 1 and 2.7 billion years ago, there was a single moon orbiting Mars.
“Phobos and Deimos are the remnants of this lost moon,” Amirhossein Bagheri, a member of the research team and a doctoral student at the Institute of Geophysics at ETH Zurich in Germany, said in a statement from the university. While their strange appearance made the scientific community suspect that Phobos and Deimos were asteroids trapped in the gravitational field of the Red Planet, Bagheri noted that this was “where the problems began. “
Amir Khan, a senior scientist with the University of Zurich Institute of Physics and ETH Zurich Institute of Geophysics, explains that the idea is to discover the orbits and how they have changed since then. Finding a point where their locations intervened, researchers believed that both moons came from a single progenitor in the past.
In addition to their orbit in their previous orbit and movement toward Mars, researchers had to further test this theory. They had to study the existing theories based on the interaction between Mars and the branches. It involves a type of energy conversion called dissipation, which is dependent on a number of factors such as the size of the planet and the branches, the physical shape, and the distance between them.
Further explorations of the Red Planet and the Moons
ETH Zurich’s press release noted the exploration efforts with NASA’s InSight mission, involving the German university. In particular, the electronics integrated into the InSight seismometer, which records vibration and meteorite effects, were developed at ETH. Khan explains that the data from this mission is used to “disrupt the Mars model,” based on the computation and distribution occurring in Mars and the branches.
Imaging and measurement data from other Martian testers suggest that both Phobos and Deimos are made up of highly porous material. “There are a lot of caves inside Phobos, which can be water ice, and that’s where the tides cause a lot of energy to dissipate,” Khan explained.
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Check out more news and information about Mars in the Science Times.