{"id":17017,"date":"2024-11-22T08:38:07","date_gmt":"2024-11-22T09:38:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/?p=17017"},"modified":"2024-11-22T10:25:25","modified_gmt":"2024-11-22T10:25:25","slug":"an-asteroids-destruction-may-have-given-mars-rings-then-moons","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/?p=17017","title":{"rendered":"An Asteroid\u2019s Destruction May Have Given Mars Rings, Then Moons"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Scientists simulated a situation that may offer an improved explanation for how the Red Planet ended up with small Phobos and tiny Deimos.<\/p>\n

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Something\u2019s not quite right about the moons of Mars. They are too small \u2014 Phobos is 17 miles across, and Deimos is a mere nine miles in length. And they aren\u2019t round, but lumpy, misshaped objects. Frankly, they don\u2019t resemble moons at all.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey look like asteroids, they smell like asteroids, as well as looking like potatoes,\u201d said James O\u2019Donoghue<\/a>, a planetary astronomer at the University of Reading in England. Perhaps, then, astronomers have suggested, they are asteroids \u2014 two space rocks captured long ago by Mars\u2019s gravity.<\/p>\n

A study published Wednesday in the journal Icarus<\/a> makes a case that the moons did indeed start out in asteroid form. But it\u2019s not the genesis everyone was expecting. Using supercomputer-powered simulations, scientists describe a situation in which a large-enough asteroid was captured by Mars long ago and torn to shreds by the planet\u2019s gravity, briefly forming a debris cloud \u2014 and possibly a ring system \u2014 around Mars that ultimately clumped together to form two moons.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat they\u2019ve got here is really compelling,\u201d said Dr. O\u2019Donoghue, who wasn\u2019t involved with the study. \u201cI\u2019m sold.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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The notion that Phobos and Deimos may be captured asteroids has long come up against one major problem: Their orbits are too circular, and too neatly aligned around Mars\u2019s equator. Asteroids approach planets at all sorts of angles, and if these moons were once asteroids, their orbits would be expected to be tilted, and perhaps be somewhat oval-shape.<\/p>\n

That they aren\u2019t seems suspicious, and supports the theory that they were forged another way. This is akin to the favored origin story of Earth\u2019s own satellite<\/a>, wherein a Mars-size object slammed into the nascent world, creating a spray of debris, which glued itself together to form our moon.<\/p>\n

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Scientists simulated a situation that may offer an improved explanation for how the Red Planet ended up with small Phobos and tiny Deimos.Something\u2019s not quite right about the moons of Mars. They are too small \u2014 Phobos is 17 miles across, and Deimos is a mere nine miles in length. And they aren\u2019t round, but lumpy, misshaped objects. Frankly, they don\u2019t resemble moons at all.\u201cThey look like asteroids, they smell like asteroids, as well as looking like potatoes,\u201d said James O\u2019Donoghue, a planetary astronomer at the University of Reading in England. Perhaps, then, astronomers have suggested, they are asteroids \u2014 two space rocks captured long ago by Mars\u2019s gravity.A study published Wednesday in the journal Icarus makes a case that the moons did indeed start out in asteroid form. But it\u2019s not the genesis everyone was expecting. Using supercomputer-powered simulations, scientists describe a situation in which a large-enough asteroid was captured by Mars long ago and torn to shreds by the planet\u2019s gravity, briefly forming a debris cloud \u2014 and possibly a ring system \u2014 around Mars that ultimately clumped together to form two moons.\u201cWhat they\u2019ve got here is really compelling,\u201d said Dr. O\u2019Donoghue, who wasn\u2019t involved with the study. \u201cI\u2019m sold.\u201dThe notion that Phobos and Deimos may be captured asteroids has long come up against one major problem: Their orbits are too circular, and too neatly aligned around Mars\u2019s equator. Asteroids approach planets at all sorts of angles, and if these moons were once asteroids, their orbits would be expected to be tilted, and perhaps be somewhat oval-shape.That they aren\u2019t seems suspicious, and supports the theory that they were forged another way. This is akin to the favored origin story of Earth\u2019s own satellite, wherein a Mars-size object slammed into the nascent world, creating a spray of debris, which glued itself together to form our moon.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and\u00a0log into\u00a0your Times account, or\u00a0subscribe\u00a0for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber?\u00a0Log in.Want all of The Times?\u00a0Subscribe.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":17019,"comment_status":"close","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17017","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17017","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=17017"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17017\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17020,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17017\/revisions\/17020"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/17019"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=17017"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=17017"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=17017"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}