Phobos – Page 2 – Astronomy Now

Mars will gain a ring as Phobos has only 40 million years left

25 November 2015 Keith Cooper

The red planet Mars is destined to become the ringed planet within 40 million years’ time, when its largest moon Phobos is torn apart, according to two scientists from the University of California, Berkeley.

Mars’ moon Phobos is slowly falling apart

10 November 2015 Astronomy Now

Orbiting a mere 3,700 miles above the surface of Mars, Phobos is closer to its planet than any other moon in the solar system. Mars’ gravity is drawing in the 17 × 14 × 11 mile body by about 6.6 feet (2 metres) every hundred years. The long, shallow grooves lining the surface of Phobos are likely early signs of its structural failure as scientists expect it to be pulled apart.

Diverse destinations considered for new interplanetary probe

12 April 2015 Stephen Clark

Science teams from across the United States have submitted 28 proposals for missions to explore the moons of Jupiter and Saturn, touch the asteroid-like satellites orbiting Mars, visit unseen worlds and hunt for objects that could strike Earth one day.

Mysterious Martian dust cloud and aurora detected by NASA spacecraft

19 March 2015 Astronomy Now

Unlike the Earth, Mars lost a global protective magnetic field billions of years ago, so solar particles can directly strike the atmosphere. NASA’s MAVEN spacecraft recently detected extensive auroral activity in the Red Planet’s northern hemisphere, plus an unexplained high-altitude dust cloud.