Submitted by peterabbit456 t3_z44gpm in space
Comments
r_special_ t1_ixp817u wrote
Last time I slowly ripped my moon apart was because I was constipated… Mars needs some fiber
[deleted] t1_ixpbh6n wrote
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Know0neSpecial t1_ixpdje2 wrote
By slowly they mean sssslooooooowwwwlyyy
"Phobos gets closer to Mars by about 2 cm per year, and it is predicted that within 30 to 50 million years it will either collide with the planet or break up into a planetary ring."
Trumpologist t1_ixpg1ar wrote
30-50M years isn’t all that much
[deleted] t1_ixpg418 wrote
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[deleted] t1_ixpgmhq wrote
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Klondike2022 t1_ixpjp5n wrote
If we crash that moon into mars will it be more like earth?
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Kaio_ t1_ixpl2e0 wrote
Saturn's rings will be gone by then
bettyboober t1_ixpns4k wrote
Tidal friction - result - Mars' rings.
sensitivepistachenut t1_ixpo5kt wrote
I guess this is a good reason to declare Mars as a terrorist planet and bring freedom and democracy on it's surface as an act of peace
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PlasticMansGlasses t1_ixpppcb wrote
I wanted to know if this would happen within our lifetime. Probably not hey?
[deleted] t1_ixppy87 wrote
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seehp t1_ixprnr0 wrote
Unless there is quite some progress in physics or medicine, no.
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neroselene t1_ixpu6kh wrote
So would you say Mars is ripping and tearing its moons?
Executive-dickbutt t1_ixpvvru wrote
Can't this be mathed out?
BadBassist t1_ixpzh8e wrote
If I had a series of moons, I'd rip the largest apart too, for reasons I cannot disclose.
GonnaGoFar t1_ixpzxre wrote
Possibly, the Sheppard Moons may be able to maintain at least part of the structure.
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CrazyLaurel t1_ixq2g1k wrote
Are we going to let this stand, man? Phobos did not ask for this.
D_r_e_a_D t1_ixq2sli wrote
Glad to know Uranus is not ripping moons apart anymore.
Xaqv t1_ixq3f0n wrote
Moons may come and moods may go but the ring is the symbol of eternal revolvement.
RedHerringxx t1_ixq40xr wrote
All planets are slowly ripping their associated moons apart.
Xaqv t1_ixq46b7 wrote
And establish SNATO - Satellites Nearby Atlantic Treaty Organization
JimiWanShinobi t1_ixq4e6v wrote
Phobos and Deimos aren't really moons tho, neither of them are large enough for gravity to self correct their shape into a sphere. They're really just asteroids that got caught in Mars gravity and started orbiting instead of falling immediately to the surface...
zZEpicSniper303Zz t1_ixq4pc2 wrote
It's more likely we'll boost them into a higher orbit by then.
Xaqv t1_ixq4pke wrote
It has nothing to do with intake, asteroid or otherwise. Planets and moons must learn that their association is a union sanctified by God in Genesis. Read your Bible!
Xaqv t1_ixq5j1o wrote
If we want to keep it, let it be a lesson to keep the Moon contented. To not milk it for minerals or let cows jump over it for childish gratifications.
Xaqv t1_ixq66o6 wrote
And regret it later. It is an earthling frailty to harm that which is so close and dear to us.
Spindelhalla_xb t1_ixq77l5 wrote
Really? How come?
Roland_Zakalwe t1_ixq9xvi wrote
Jupiter and Saturn are going through a rough period, so it looks like a divorce is inevitable.
BoiledNutSalesman t1_ixqevfk wrote
We're actually throwing ours away little by little.
Wooden_Ad_3096 t1_ixqexg4 wrote
No, it would stay the same.
Wooden_Ad_3096 t1_ixqf1wx wrote
You’re mistaking the definition of a moon for the definition of a planet.
Moons don’t need a specific shape, planets do.
Reniconix t1_ixqf7rv wrote
Ours isn't. And Mars is only ripping one of 2 apart.
Moons only get ripped apart if they orbit faster than the rotation of their host planet. This is because tidal forces are working to rob them of energy, further decreasing their already short distances from their host planet.
This list is Phobos (Mars), Metis and Andrastea (Jupiter), Cordelia, Ophelia, Bianca, Cressida, Desdemona, Juliet, Portia, Rosalind, Cupid, Belinda, Perdita, Puck, and Mab (Uranus), and Naiad, Thalassa, Despina, Galatea, Larissa, and Hippocamp (Neptune). All of these moons are listed from nearest to furthest to their host.
All others are safe, as they are robbing energy from their host planet, speeding up and drifting away until they eventually slow their host rotation to tidally lock with them.
haha_supadupa t1_ixqfqcf wrote
Rings travel from planet to planet
JimiWanShinobi t1_ixqgclv wrote
If that's the case then the James Webb telescope is a moon of Earth. You're mistaking the definition of a moon for the definition of a satellite, one of these two terms needs to be eliminated...
Edit: alright fine, I picked a bad example because I wasn't fully aware of where it's located. Surely there's better examples, like the International Space Station, nobody is calling that a moon either, it's still a satellite. If an asteroid flew by and got caught in the exact same position and orbital path it would still be a satellite, it wouldn't suddenly become The Moon 2...
wgp3 t1_ixqh1ql wrote
Pretty sure naturally occurs versus man-made is probably a sufficient line to draw. Not to mention jwst doesn't orbit the earth. It orbits a Lagrange point between the earth and the sun. Which makes it in a heliocentric orbit rather than earth orbit.
Signiference t1_ixqhkyo wrote
That’s odd, Terraforming Mars would have me believe it’s Deimos that’s going down.
CameronMH t1_ixqhm6f wrote
Solar wind and gravity will eventually clear all the debris, ring systems aren't around for very long on a cosmological time scale
RedHerringxx t1_ixqhptc wrote
That’s an awesome response. TIL. Thanks.
Wooden_Ad_3096 t1_ixqi1g1 wrote
A moon is a natural satellite
Abuses-Commas t1_ixqj6by wrote
James Webb isn't in orbit around Earth, it's orbiting the Sun
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Exploding_Antelope t1_ixql226 wrote
Never really got over the whole devouring alive and then carving out of his stomach thing eh
Exploding_Antelope t1_ixqlgos wrote
It will give you three temperature points and four steel, and let you take eight plants from another player.
In actuality, yes, but to a fairly negligible degree. You’d be adding some energy and maybe a bit of greenhouse effect to the atmosphere, so it might get a degree or two warmer from the impact, but not permanently. And you’d be adding mass, but not nearly enough to have a noticeable increase in gravity.
Exploding_Antelope t1_ixqlniv wrote
Isn’t our moon already tidally locked?
notpetelambert t1_ixqlnj8 wrote
Amos is gonna have to update their flag again.
Reniconix t1_ixqlqd9 wrote
It is, but I'm talking about the opposite: Earth becoming tidally locked to the Moon, etc.
Exploding_Antelope t1_ixqm9qw wrote
Got it. That got me wondering, do we know how long that’ll take for Earth? And what I read is that by the time it happens, the sun will mostly likely have expanded anyway, which would obviously have much bigger effects on the whole system.
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LurkmasterP t1_ixqmpz1 wrote
What if we try to boost them lower instead, so we can watch what happens?
zZEpicSniper303Zz t1_ixqmu2l wrote
Probably wouldn't be good for the people living on Mars, but it's a great way of maintaining a claim on an ever more self sufficient colony.
froggison t1_ixqn369 wrote
Or what if we get a bunch of rockets and push it into Mars?
kaffeekranz t1_ixqna8m wrote
You can't just shoot a moon into the surface of Mars.
froggison t1_ixqngn0 wrote
It's possible that Earth used to have visible rings. The theory is that a large body collided with Earth ~4 billion years ago, the debris of which formed visible rings, and those rings eventually formed our moon.
Lt_Duckweed t1_ixqoai7 wrote
Take it up with NASA then: https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/moons/mars-moons/overview
Reniconix t1_ixqoftb wrote
The sun will engulf the earth before this happens.
The sun expanding will actually not change anything past Earth's orbit. The center of gravity will be unchanged, thus expansion alone cannot affect orbits.
arsglacialis t1_ixqpsgu wrote
At least it wasn't a sneak attack by Earth this time. #MarsRepublic
feelbetternow t1_ixqr859 wrote
Those Dusters had it comin’.
suaveponcho t1_ixqrr9l wrote
In my case it was a Hot Ones party. “The Spice must flow” indeed.
nzl_river97 t1_ixqrsdj wrote
Most efficient way is to push it backwards to slow it down and reduce the orbit. Pushing it directly to Mars will just make the orbit more eccentric.
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david4069 t1_ixqt5rz wrote
Rings are for local transport. You want to go to another planet, you're gonna need to use the stargate.
InGenAche t1_ixqy3yd wrote
Can't wait to see it as a planetary ring!
Oh damn....
Karcinogene t1_ixqyfs6 wrote
Or just disassemble them completely to build all kinds of things
seehp t1_ixqz61f wrote
Good plan. I like that. Tom Cruise will probably want to be there to film an action film sequence.
ironinside t1_ixqzipj wrote
Planetary ting would look pretty cool on Mars. Galactic fashion.
Klondike2022 t1_ixr3p0y wrote
Darn it. We can work on Venus then. There must be something we can do
Exploding_Antelope t1_ixr6a4z wrote
Well, Phobos alone might not do the whole trick, but there’s lots of other asteroids near there. I’ve heard there’s this “belt” thing?
Klondike2022 t1_ixrb3y0 wrote
Worth a shot. Or we can take this belt and mash it into a new planet
peterabbit456 OP t1_ixrgsmd wrote
On the geological time scale that is sort of medium fast. Rivers change their courses over ~5 million year time scales. Continents split and crash together over ~200 million year time scales. Titan will lose its lakes in about 300 million years.
Mars has changed so little in the last 3 billion years that the Phobos breakup is like a daily headline. Of course, we will land on it in the next few years and probably disassemble Phobos over the next 1000 years, so this all might become moot soon.
hunterscodes t1_ixrhg5r wrote
If this happens, when the moon crash’s into mars, would that throw off its orbit and consequently every other planet? And would that end life on earth?
peterabbit456 OP t1_ixrhlq9 wrote
No.
Phobos, where it is, is one of the greatest resources in the Solar System. We can mine the whole thing until there is nothing left, or turn it into an O'Neil space station with a clear conscience, since it will be gone soon anyway, on a geological time scale.
Once we master space-based mining, we can turn Phobos into a fleet of spaceships, or a vast array of silicon solar panels to beam space-based power to Mars, or make mirrors to reflect sunlight onto Mars, to warm the planet to Earth-like temperatures.
peterabbit456 OP t1_ixrhxlw wrote
Only Phobos is close enough to be torn apart.
This was how Saturn created it rings. There is an up side...
peterabbit456 OP t1_ixrin26 wrote
> It's not nice to fool with Mother Nature.
We are humans. Of course we will mess with this natural process. In the next 1000 years we will probably mine Phobos until it is a hollow shell, and then turn the interior space into a giant amusement park.
From the mined metals and silicon we could build orbiting power stations, and warm up Mars by beaming microwaves and reflected sunlight to the surface.
peterabbit456 OP t1_ixriwbj wrote
No, there is something called the Roche limit.
Moons inside that limiting distance will be ripped apart. I think only Saturn and Mars has moons inside the limit. You can see what happened at Saturn.
(Edit: There is a much better response about this, higher up. If I read it right, Uranus and Jupiter are also ripping moons apart.)
[deleted] t1_ixrjk6n wrote
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peterabbit456 OP t1_ixrjq8z wrote
There is no requirement for moons to be spherical. See Saturn's smaller moons, including Hyperion.
I said something similar over at /r/asteroid about a year ago, about them being captured asteroids, and got refuted by a post-doc who knows more about the Martian moons than I. Now I'm not totally convinced, either way.
Personally, I think we will know a lot more after the JAXA probe brings back samples.
peterabbit456 OP t1_ixrkk7n wrote
> Terraforming Mars
You shouldn't trust novels, movies, or board games for scientific information.
Phobos is the closer moon. It crosses the sky West to East, as seen on Mars. It is inside the Roche limit. It is being torn apart.
Deimos is above the Roche Limit. It crosses the sky, East to West, like our Moon. It will stick around a bit longer.
peterabbit456 OP t1_ixrkpf6 wrote
Please explain. This must be a fiction reference.
peterabbit456 OP t1_ixrl3lv wrote
It will break up first. After the breakup, atmospheric drag will cause dust to come down in a few thousand years, followed by pebbles and boulders over the next several million years. There could be a nice little ring for a while. (might not be fun for space travelers.)
peterabbit456 OP t1_ixrli4d wrote
We will mine Phobos down to nothing before the breakup. No-one will complain.
Mob_Abominator t1_ixrlkuj wrote
Yeah it's from the book/TV series The Expanse. It's really good.
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Signiference t1_ixrnedx wrote
Yeah, but if we intentionally turn it into a meteor by paying the low low price of 31 space bucks to increase the warmth by 3° that’s like, totally worth it right? Especially if I get to burn up Ecoline’s plants in the process!
peterabbit456 OP t1_ixrnzm3 wrote
I have a plan for Venus.
- We put a bunch of mirrors at the Venus-Sun Lagrange point #1. Reflect light away from Venus. Cool it down until the atmosphere freezes. (This is a 1000 year project.)
- Once the surface pressure is down to 1 Bar or 14.7 PSI or 101 kPa or whatever, start building chemical plants on the surface to convert those puddles of liquid nitrogen and frozen blocks of CO2 and sulfuric acid into solid minerals, so the air pressure won't rise when the heat is turned back on.
- Turn the heat back on, by turning some of those mirrors sideways to the Sun.
- Introduce life. Hydrogen from sulfuric acid and oxygen from CO2 make water. Chemical plants from step 2 have made some fertilizer. Plant some plants. Water them.
- Bring in the people.
It might take 2000 years total, but we can remake Venus in Earth's image.
notpetelambert t1_ixroc86 wrote
I'm referencing the excellent book and TV series The Expanse. It's semi-hard sci-fi, set in the nearish future of our solar system, where there's a growing conflict over the resources of the asteroid belt and outer planets... Earth and Mars are in a murky cold war with each other, and a third faction- the microgravity-native Belters- are beginning to forge their own new society, in the outer reaches of the system.
The reference is a bit spoiler-y for book and season 2... >!When one of the Martian moons gets blown up, a main crew character "fixes" the Martian flag by turning its depiction of Phobos into a bunch of dots. Predictably, this pisses off the Martians.!<
peterabbit456 OP t1_ixroepx wrote
Actually, it has a ring, so it might still be doing so.
peterabbit456 OP t1_ixrpel1 wrote
No. Phobos is pretty small, and besides the center of gravity of the Mars-Phobos-Deimos system will not change. There should be no effect on the rest of the Solar System.
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peterabbit456 OP t1_ixrqasf wrote
Yes it can. There was an excellent reply above.
Short answer: Phobos is below the Roche limit. It will be ripped apart.
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Klondike2022 t1_ixrwlmd wrote
Sounds like a good investment for the future of humanity. We must tell Elon at once!
TheeChadSlayer t1_ixs4738 wrote
may be as in its not doing it for sure right. right........
Ragnangar t1_ixs5gao wrote
My in-laws will definitely have left by then. Most definitely.
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Khavak t1_ixs9095 wrote
or accelerate it into an eccentric orbit and then deaccelerate it at apoapsis
Lollister t1_ixseqqj wrote
Sooo you play ksp or real astrophysican ?
nzl_river97 t1_ixslb2i wrote
I did a few papers on astrophysics in uni, but also a lot of ksp haha
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Lollister t1_ixsmmix wrote
Oh man :) its always ksp cheers
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Academic_Ocelot3917 t1_ixso7c2 wrote
I've heard that Earth might have a ring in the future from the space debris if it isn't cleaned up.
[deleted] t1_ixsqfho wrote
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FlyingSpacefrog t1_ixsrrsr wrote
The total mass of all objects humans have sent into space thus far is insignificant compared to even one of Saturns rings.
Any orbital debris less than 1000 km in altitude is likely to reenter the atmosphere and vaporize itself within the next century, so it has very little chance of forming a permanent planetary ring.
We sort of do have a ring out at geosynchronous orbit already, but it’s very spaced out and consists mostly of intact satellites that are still operational, with another ring right next to it of satellites that are retired and out of fuel which will remain on their current path for millions of years before gravitational interactions from the moon have enough time to significantly impact their orbits. So if we do get a visible ring of debris around earth my bet is it’s going to be near geostationary orbit in altitude
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AbbreviationsNo8212 t1_ixszrwd wrote
Oh no, the poor Leather Goddesses.
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peterabbit456 OP t1_ixp6la4 wrote
At the end the author notes that JAXA is sending a sample return mission to Phobos and Deimos soon, with returned samples scheduled to arrive in 2029.
I do not usually like Live Science as a source, but this article was fairly well written.