Astronomers suggest a whole new origin of the strange moons of Mars

New research on the origin of the two strange moons of Mars suggests that they are not cosmic visitors after all, but that they are mostly grown at home.

Our understanding of our own moon shows probable evidence of its formation from the debris left by a massive impact between the Earth and a Mars-type planet billions of years ago.

But when it comes to the possible origin of two of the strangest moons in Mars – Phobos and Deimos – we thought they were actually simple asteroids captured by the gravity of the planet.

It was because his dark faces resembled those of the primitive asteroids found in the outer solar system. After all, observed in visible light, the two moons appear much darker than Mars. However, what made no sense was the fact that the shapes and angles of their orbits did not correspond to the asteroid theory.

Now, the research published at the Journal of Geophysical Research: Planets may have found a way to explain a story of Martian origin.

In a different approach, the lead author of the study, Tim Clotch, and the rest of his team decided to observe the moons in the mid-infrared within the same limits as the temperature body.

Totally different

Phobos has a thermal signature discernible in the middle infrared and, compared to a meteorite sample falling on Earth, the Tagish Lake meteorite.

"We found at these wavelengths that the Tagish Lake meteorite is not like Phobos at all, and in fact, what best fits Phobos, or at least one of the characteristics of the spectrum, is the ground basalt. common volcanic rock, and that's what most of the Martian crust is made of, "Glotch said. "This leads us to think that perhaps Phobos could be a remnant of an impact that occurred at the beginning of Martian history."

In addition, the team did not say that Phobos was entirely composed of Martian material, which suggests that it is a combination of the crust and debris of the planet with an impacting object.

"What's really great is that this assumption is verifiable, because the Japanese are developing a mission called MMX that will go to Phobos, collect a sample and bring it back to Earth," Glotch said.