A new study has revealed that the weird parallel grooves on the surface of Mars' largest moon Phobos could be a sign that the Red Planet's gravity is ripping the satellite apart.
Mars' largest moon Phobos shows signs of being ripped apart by the extreme gravitational forces exerted on it by the Red Planet, a new study shows. Researchers have revealed that the unusual grooves covering Phobos' surface, which were previously assumed to be scars from an ancient asteroid impact, are actually dust-filled canyons that are growing wider as the moon gets stretched out by gravitational forces.
However, unlike the moon, Phobos' orbit around Mars is not stable: The tiny satellite is trapped in a death-spiral and is slowly falling towards the Martian surface at a rate of 6 feet every 100 years, according to NASA. But a new study, published Nov. 4 in the The Planetary Science Journal , suggests that the grooves may actually be the result of the moon slowly being ripped apart by Mars' intense gravity as Phobos circles ever closer to the planet's surface.The idea behind the new study is that as one body, in this case Phobos, gets closer to a larger body, such as Mars, the smaller will begin to stretch out in a line towards the larger body. This is known as tidal force.
While prior research suggested tidal forces produced Phobos' tiger stripes the theory has been largely dismissed due to the moon’s powdery or “fluffy” composition, making it too soft for such cracks to form.
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