Posted on 11/10/2015 4:49:46 PM PST by BenLurkin
One of the most striking features we see on images of Phobos is the parallel sets of grooves on the moonâs surface. They were originally thought to be fractures caused by an impact long ago. But scientists now say the grooves are early signs of the structural failure that will ultimately destroy this moon.
"We think that Phobos has already started to fail, and the first sign of this failure is the production of these grooves," said Terry Hurford, from NASAâs Goddard Space Flight Center.
...
Mars' gravity is pulling in Phobos closer by about 2 meters (6.6 feet) every hundred years. The orbit will get lower and lower until it reaches a level known as the Roche Limit. This is the point where the tidal forces between the two sides of the moon are so different that it gets torn apart.
Hurford and his colleagues, who presented their latest findings at the annual Meeting of the Division of Planetary Sciences of the American Astronomical Society this week, also delivered other bad news about the interior of Phobos â which could ultimately speed up the demise of the moon. Phobos' insides are likely to be just a big pile of rubble - barely holding together - surrounded by a layer of powdery regolith about 100 meters (330 feet) thick.
...
Phobos' grooves....new modeling by Hurford and his team supports the idea that the grooves are more like "stretch marks" that occur when Phobos gets deformed by tidal forces.
(Excerpt) Read more at universetoday.com ...
On a visit to the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory in 2005, Jackson Lee made embarrassing news by asking if the Mars Pathfinder had taken an image of the flag planted there in 1969 by Neil Armstrong.[2]
Prior to the 110th Congress, Jackson Lee served on the House Science Committee and on the Subcommittee that oversees space policy and NASA.
http://web.archive.org/web/20100409095818/http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sheila_Jackson_Lee
When the Martian satellite finally implodes, we can expect that Muslim, gay, & black Phobians will be hardest hit.
Nah, the Phobians will be hardest hit. I feel sorry for clastrophobes, arachnophobes, triskaidekaphobes, blennophobes, and bathophobes.
Yup. Not like it has not been there a long time and just suddenly decided to self destruct when we started looking at it.
By the way, how is the leg? Still got your scorpions?
Well, I’m not happy about it. No sir, not one bit happy about it. All my travel plans have now changed and I didn’t get the trip insurance.
The nougat center of Phobos must be drying out. ;-)
Okay, so what is the monolith on its surface, an internal girder poking through?
‘I would like to see this happen. It’s on my bucket list.’
++
I grew up on a farm, so I know about buckets.
They’re crude, heavy, awkward, bang against your legs when you walk. They drag you down in the mud.
I don’t do ‘bucket lists’ for that very reason.
I have dreams and desires.
Those dreams and desires lift me up, straining for the sky, instead of pulling me down in the mud.
There are stars up there, beams of light so wistful they carry me away with their hopes.
I have many things on my dream list.
It’s light as a feather.
Yup. Microgravity aggression.
Or Uranus for that matter
Oh look a Pinhead
The wind shifted.
But as for the scorpions, I’m entitled to bite off your left ear.
CRUZ or lose in 2016 indeed!
;^)
Sounds like that old Climate Change is at it again.
Saturn’s rings are in fact thought to be the result of a moon wandering too close to the Roche limit and breaking apart, just like this says Phobos is about to do.
I fear Mars’ moon. I’m a Phobophobe.
I met a Colonel one time up at Rock Island that was a dead ringer for Flagg. He had teeth like a horse!
Sorry about the wind.
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