![Mars' moons Phobos and Deimos. [사진 NASA]](https://i0.wp.com/pds.joins.com/news/component/htmlphoto_mmdata/202102/25/edb02b9a-b3a7-49b6-ad4b-045f6c7d404e.jpg?w=560&ssl=1)
Mars’ moons Phobos and Deimos. [사진 NASA]
Mars, nicknamed’Second Earth’ as the fourth planet in the solar system. Mars has two satellites, Phobos and Deimos, unlike Earth, which has only one moon.
Two satellites that were thought to be twins were originally one body, and the result of a study that was split into two after colliding with another celestial body was published in the scientific journal Nature Astronomy on the 22nd (local time).
Based on computer simulations, a team of geophysical researchers at the Federal Institute of Technology Zurich (ETH Zurich) argued that a satellite near Mars was split in two when it hit another celestial body about 1 billion to 2.7 billion years ago.
The research team conducted an analysis based on the tidal forces acting between Mars and the two satellites (the force that causes tides by the sum of the attraction of the sun and satellites and the centrifugal force) and the data obtained through the geological probe’InSight’.
Mars unveiled by the US Geological Survey. EPA=Yonhap News
The original satellite was located outside Phobos.
First, through hundreds of simulations, the two satellites’ past orbits were tracked and found that the orbits of the two satellites intersected between 1 billion and 2.7 billion years. The team explained that the intersection of orbits meant that the two satellites were in the same location and of the same origin.
In addition, the simulation predicted that the original Mars satellite was outward than Phobos, which orbits about 7 hours and 39 minutes. It is said that Phobos was pulled inward by Mars’ key force, and it is still in progress.
Phobos is destined to disappear within 40 million years
Unfortunately, simulations show that the inner satellite Phobos is doomed to collide with Mars within 40 million years. “The Deimos will move outward very slowly, as if the Moon is moving away from Earth, while Phobos will come in and collide with Mars or tear before it.”
He added that if a Japanese probe, scheduled for launch in 2024, brought a rock sample from Phobos to Earth, it would more accurately determine when the two satellites were created.
Meanwhile, the two moons of Mars discovered by American astronomer Asaf Hall in 1877 are named after the twin sons of Ares (‘Mars’ in Roman mythology), which appears as the’god of war’ in Greek mythology. Shared. They mean’panic’ (phobos) and’fear’ (demos), respectively.
Phobos, located inside, is 22km in diameter and is only one 160th the size of the moon, while Deimos, located outside, is smaller, about 12km in diameter. Earth’s moon is round, but Mars’ moons have a potato-like bumpy shape.
Reporter Go Seok-hyun [email protected]
