"Mars Could One Day Have a Ring Made of Broken-Up..." Topic

… Moon Bits 2 hours.

"Today, the solar system is pretty easy to keep track of (except for that piddling dwarf planet debate). Everything orbiting the sun has its defining features: There's Tiny Burny One, Bigger Burny One, Home, the Red Planet, the Big One, the Ringed One, the Butt Joke, and Ol' Blue. But as the planets change, kids are going to have a harder time keeping track of them. Especially if humans miraculously survive another 40 million years. Those middle-schoolers may have to make sense of a Mars with a ring.

Astronomers have long known that Phobos, one of Mars' two moons, is spiraling toward the planet—about seven feet closer every 100 years. At some point, the moon will self-destruct, either crashing into the surface or disintegrating under tidal stresses from the planet's gravitational pull. And according to an analysis published today in Nature Geoscience, those pieces—either ejecta from a plunge into the surface or the rubble from the tidal crumbling—may end up forming a new ring system around Mars. In 20 or 40 million years, that is…"
Full article here
link

Amicalement
Armand

I was hoping it would say Matt Damons.

(smile)

Amicalement
Armand

What a dreadful, juvenile, pointless non-article…

John T