Mars’s largest moon, Phobos, is slowly falling toward the planet, but probably won’t smash into the red planet’s surface. Instead, it likely will be shredded and the pieces strewn about the planet in a ring like those encircling Saturn, Jupiter, Uranus, and Neptune.
Though inevitable, the demise of Phobos is not imminent. It will probably not happen for 20 to 40 million years.
A new study published online in the journal Nature Geoscience, estimates the cohesiveness of Phobos is insufficient to resist the tidal forces that will pull it apart when it gets closer to Mars.
Standing on the surface of Mars a few tens of millions of years from now, it would be pretty spectacular to watch.
