When we think of ringed planets, we immediately think of what some consider the jewel of our solar system: Saturn. But one day our neighbour could have rings of its own.
A new study published in Nature Geoscience found that Mars’ biggest moon — Phobos — is slowly falling in to the planet. But instead of smashing into it, the small moon will slowly be torn apart, eventually forming a ring. But this isn’t happening any time soon: it will likely occur within 10 to 20 million years.
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“While our moon is moving away from earth at a few centimeters per year, Phobos is moving toward Mars at a few centimeters per year, so it is almost inevitable that it will either crash into Mars or break apart,” said Benjamin Black, an author of the paper, and a University of California, Berkeley postdoctoral fellow.
Though we think about Saturn when it comes to rings around planets, in fact, all of the outer planets — Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune — have rings. Saturn’s are just the most prominent.
The rings around these planets are comprised of bits of ice, rock and dust. There are a couple of theories as to how these rings formed: one, that they are the result of ice, dust and rock being expelled after smashing into a moon, or moons (Saturn and Jupiter each have more than 60 moons); a second theory is that they are the result of asteroids or comets being captured and torn apart by the immense gravity of these giant planets.
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Not all of the Phobos’ debris will end up as a ring, however: some larger pieces would fall to the surface, creating craters.
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