Mars has a Saturn-like ring in the past?

Mars is located 75 million kilometers from Earth. The satellite Deimos is known to have a slightly unnatural orbit, but recent research has revealed the reason. The hypothesis that there was a ring like Saturn around Mars became real at once.

Mars has two satellites, Phobos and Deimos. All are bumpy like potatoes. It is also a unique sibling satellite that draws a circular orbit along the Mars equator. Deimos is orbiting outside of Phobos, and in fact, Deimos’ orbit is tilted against Mars’ equator.

This slanted slope has great significance. According to a paper published in the Astrophysical Journal, the nonprofit SETI Institute said that the fact that the Deimos orbit did not exactly coincide with the Mars equator was not important, and no one tried to explain it. But from a new perspective, there is a big secret behind the Deimos orbital slope.

This secret has to do with Phobos. This study suggests that Phobos repeated the cycle of decay and regeneration and formed a temporary and periodic ring around Mars. This is also the process of explaining how Mars got two moons. So far, no theory has been able to explain how Phobos and Deimos reached their current orbital position. There is a theory that an asteroid came to Mars and that two objects collided, but these cannot explain the tilting of the satellite orbit and Deimos.

This is the periodic statement theory. In fact, it is predicted that Phobos will slowly approach Mars, and after 70 million years, Phobos will collapse due to Mars gravity. And the collapsed Phobos fragment creates a new Martian ring.

In addition, as time passes, the fragments of Phobos that make up the ring regroup and become a new, smaller Phobos. Of course, this phenomenon has happened repeatedly in the past. It is estimated that it has been between 3 and 7 times in the last 4.3 billion years.

So how does this relate to Deimos? According to a recent study, Phobos repeatedly died and regenerated, causing Deimos’ orbit to deviate from the Mars equator. Computer simulations show that when a moon 20 times larger than Phobos is created, Deimos’ orbital slope is significantly affected. Through this process, due to the ring created by the newly born moon, the force away from Mars acts, which also affects the Deimos orbital cycle that circulates outside Phobos.

The theory of the moon circulating on Mars is an important factor that makes the Deimos slope possible. He explained that the new satellite was the result of the distance from Mars and its environment, and that this was the opposite direction to Phobos’ inward spiral due to Mars gravitational interaction. It is thought that this phenomenon occurred 3 billion years ago, and it is believed to have been a satellite 20 times larger than the current Phobos, and it is estimated that it was at the time when the satellite corresponding to the current Phobos’ grandparents was born. Because Phobos, which exists now, is 200 million years since its birth, and Deimos has already passed billions of years, it is also consistent with the scenario.

Of course, these results are only due to computer calculation models. If we learn about the origins of Phobos and Deimos through actual exploration, we are expected to unlock the secrets of the Mars moon. Related information can be found here .