Mars' two small moons Phobos and Deimos huge 'mystery' for scientists

Mars’ two small moons Phobos (fear) and Deimos (panic) named after the horses of the Greek war god Ares have been the celestial objects of immense interest to the planetary scientists. While several countries launched missions to study samples of the “space potatoes”, including Russia, the attempts failed either due to software errors or the launch disasters. As Japan prepares to launch a mission to Phobos in 2024 to collect rocks, NASA reveals that the two Mars moons have ‘deeply mysterious nature’ that has intrigued scientists worldwide for many years. 

Mars moons appear to have surface materials similar to many asteroids in the outer asteroid belt, which leads most scientists to believe that Phobos and Deimos are captured asteroids—NASA report.

A planetary scientist studying Mars, Phobos, and Deimos at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Abigail Fraeman, called the celestial bodies as “super weird, confusing and interesting”. Fraeman was quoted as saying that the astronomers had no clue where the two moons actually came from. And while the two objects look like asteroids, they account for Mars’ early, impact-laden history. He said that the Japanese mission was “hope” fro scientists as if the nation succeeded in being able to collect rock samples from the Phobos and Deimos, the astronomers would at last know where the two moons came from.  

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As per remote observations of the surfaces, the two moons, Phobos and Deimos reflect the overall textural composition of the moon, as per the astronomers. While Phobos was the larger one among the two, both moons’ surface looked scarred as if by a large crater, a standout mineral feature. Mars Odyssey spacecraft’s deputy project scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Laura Kerber, was quoted saying that the surface possibly revealed their origin. However, she added, all boxed checked are consistent with them being these captured asteroids.  

Coalesced from a disk of debris

Project scientist for the Mars Odyssey mission, Jeffrey Plaut, argued that the asteroids would not orbit the equator in a neat-and-tidy circular fashion. The two Mars moon looked like coalesced from a disk of debris and rotated around the Mars and an asteroid won’t “wind up in this beautiful, symmetric, circular orbit,” he reportedly added. Another research scientist at the SETI Institute in Mountain View, California, Matija Ćuk was quoted saying that in approximately 100 million years, Phobos’ vicinity will be at such closeness to Mars that its gravity will tear the moon apart, transforming into a beautiful system of rings. Scientists believed that Deimos was 3.5 billion years and Phobos assembled in space some 200 million years ago.  

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(All Images Credit: NASA)