火卫一：火星的卫星
(原标题: Phobos: Doomed Moon of Mars)
2022-07-03
浏览次数: 18
这个月亮注定要毁灭了。火星是一颗以罗马战神命名的红色星球，它有两个小卫星，火卫一和火卫二，它们的名字来源于希腊语中的恐惧和恐慌。这些火星卫星很可能是被捕获的小行星，它们来自火星和木星之间的主要小行星带，或者可能来自太阳系更遥远的地方。在火星勘测轨道飞行器拍摄的这张令人惊叹的彩色图像中，较大的卫星火卫一确实是一个陨石坑，类似小行星的物体，小到10米都可以看到。但火卫一的轨道离火星很近——距离火星表面约5800公里，而月球距离火星表面40万公里——引力潮汐力会把它往下拉。在大约5000万年后，火卫一预计将分解成一个碎片环。
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This moon is doomed. Mars, the red planet named for the Roman god of war, has two tiny moons, Phobos and Deimos, whose names are derived from the Greek for Fear and Panic. These martian moons may well be captured asteroids originating in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter or perhaps from even more distant reaches of our Solar System. The larger moon, Phobos, is indeed seen to be a cratered, asteroid-like object in this stunning color image from the robotic Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, with objects as small as 10 meters visible. But Phobos orbits so close to Mars - about 5,800 kilometers above the surface compared to 400,000 kilometers for our Moon - that gravitational tidal forces are dragging it down. In perhaps 50 million years, Phobos is expected to disintegrate into a ring of debris.