59

This moon is doomed. Mars, the red planet named for the Roman god of war, has two tiny moons, Phobos and Deimos, whose names are derived from the Greek for Fear and Panic. These Martian moons may well be captured asteroids originating in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter or perhaps from even more distant reaches of our Solar System. The larger moon, Phobos, is indeed seen to be a cratered, asteroid-like object in this stunning color image from the robotic Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, which can image objects as small as 10 meters. But Phobos orbits so close to Mars - about 5,800 kilometers above the surface compared to 400,000 kilometers for our Moon - that gravitational tidal forces are dragging it down. In perhaps 50 million years, Phobos is expected to disintegrate into a ring of debris.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[-] Nelots@piefed.zip 15 points 23 hours ago

I mean in the grand scheme of things, all moons, planets, and even stars are doomed eventually. For a species with an average life expectancy of 80-some years, there ain't much of a difference in 50 million and 5 billion years anyway.

[-] guy@piefed.social 3 points 21 hours ago

Our moon is escaping us though

[-] Nelots@piefed.zip 4 points 20 hours ago

True, though as far as I'm aware our sun will destroy Earth and its moon long before it manages to break free.

this post was submitted on 25 Jan 2026
59 points (98.4% liked)

Astronomy

6090 readers
91 users here now

A community for sharing astronmy-related news, content, research, photographs, etc.

When sharing photographs and articles, please make an effort to include source URLs.

founded 4 years ago
MODERATORS