Brand new research suggests that the Martian moon Phobos may collide with Mars, making it a gas planet and transforming itself into a ring, like Saturn. The biggest planets in the solar system are the gas titans: Saturn, Jupiter, Uranus and Neptune, and it looks like Phobos might help Mars join those ranks.
Mars and Saturn Will Look Like Siblings
The study, published in Nature Geoscience, suggests that these gas titans weren’t always aerated and that Phobos may become a ring around Mars as opposed to its largest moon. According to the study, every moon has one of three destinies: it will either stay in orbit infinitely, drift away or crash against its host planet. This is set to be Phobos destiny.
Part of Phobos Will Become a Tiny Moon and Another a Ring
The research, led by Benjamin Black and Tushar Mittal from the University of California, Berkeley, says that this all depends on what Phobos is made of. Phobos, which was hit by a crater and had its total area decimated, is a very porous moonlet, with low density. The experiments led the team to believe Mars will break apart a fraction of Phobos in 20 to 40 million years, forcing the moonlet to form a ring similar to the ones on Saturn. This ring could remain in place for as long as 100 million years.
If the Research is Accurate, We Now Know How Planetary Rings Form
The rest of Phobos will likely remain the same until it crashes against Mars, that is. More data acquired from probes like the PADME, PANDORA or MERLIN can verify these claims with time. Assuming the research is accurate, it’s possible that the same thing happened to the gas giants of the solar system.
