Mars, Earth's red neighbor, is often the focus of astronomers' attention. Its close location makes it an achievable target for space flight and exploration. Today it is one of the most studied planets in the solar system.

For a long time, the satellites of the Red Planet remained hidden from view. According to the stories, the astronomer Asaph Hall, who tried in vain to find them, wanted to give up everything, and continued to work only at the insistence of his wife. The very next night after the resumption of the search, he discovered the satellite of Mars, Deimos, and a few days later, Phobos.

Assumptions

As you know, the Red Planet is named after the Roman god of war. To match her, Phobos and Deimos, the satellites of Mars, received the names of his sons. "Fear" and "horror", which in translation means the names of these cosmic bodies, did not give rise to corresponding emotions among scientists. Rather, they caused confusion. The measurement results showed that the weight of the objects was too small for quite impressive sizes. There was even an opinion that the satellites are hollow inside, which means they are of artificial origin. Such assumptions were refuted after the appearance of the first images of Phobos and Deimos from spacecraft.

The smallest

Both satellites of Mars turned out to be rather small space objects. The images clearly show the slightly elongated ellipsoidal shape characteristic of them. The data obtained made it possible to assign the title of the smallest such objects in the entire solar system to the satellites of the Red Planet.

Phobos is a satellite of Mars, slightly larger than its "brother" in its parameters. It is located closer to the planet. Both objects, like the Moon, always face Mars with the same side. From the Earth, they are extremely difficult to see - this can only be done with the help of a powerful telescope. The reason for this state of affairs lies in the composition of satellites: it is dominated by carbon mixed with ice. Deimos and Phobos reflect a very small percentage of light rays and as a result look like very dim objects. The same composition, which greatly distinguishes the satellites from Mars, suggests that Phobos and Deimos were once asteroids captured over time by the Red Planet.

The closest satellite of the planet Mars

Phobos, as already mentioned, is the largest of a pair of "approximate" Red Planet. The distance that separates it from Mars is estimated at 6 thousand kilometers, which makes it the closest satellite known today. This situation has certain consequences: Phobos is a satellite of Mars, which in about 50 million years will fall on the planet, or be torn to pieces and turn into a ring of asteroids. This version of the fate of the cosmic body is supported by its gradual decline to the surface of Mars. The distance between two objects decreases by 1.8 m every hundred years.

Phobos orbits Mars in 7 hours and 39 minutes. The speed allows the satellite to overtake the daily rotation of the Red Planet. As a result, Phobos for an observer on Mars moves, emerging from the horizon in the west and setting in the east.

Consequences of the collision

A characteristic feature of both satellites is the surface pitted with craters. On Phobos is the largest of them, named after the wife of the discoverer of satellites. The diameter of the Stickney crater is 10 km. For comparison: Phobos itself has dimensions of 26.8 × 22.4 × 18.4 km. Presumably, the crater was the result hard hit when falling on the surface of Phobos a certain space object or collision.

Near the crater are mysterious furrows or cracks. They are a system of parallel recesses. Furrows extend for 100-200 km at a depth of 10-20 km, the distance between neighboring furrows reaches 30 km. The reason for their occurrence is not completely clear. The most consistent with all the data obtained is the version that the furrows were formed after the fall of material that exploded on the Red Planet onto the satellite of Mars. Scientists, however, are not in a hurry to call this hypothesis the only correct one: research continues.

Second son of the god of war

Deimos is a satellite of Mars with parameters of 15x12x11 km. It is located farther than Phobos and makes one revolution around the Red Planet in just over 30 hours. Deimos is 23,000 kilometers from the center of Mars.

For the first time, scientists were able to see Deimos after receiving a photograph taken by the Viking-1 spacecraft in 1977. An image taken by its follower, named Viking 2, showed that Mars' smaller moon also lacks a smooth surface. True, unlike Phobos, it is not decorated with furrows, but with massive blocks, the size of which is estimated in the range from 10 to 30 km.

Versions

Today there is no consensus on the origin of Deimos and Phobos. Most astronomers adhere to the point of view voiced above that they were once asteroids. The existing data on their composition speak in favor of this hypothesis: by this parameter, the satellites are related to asteroids associated with Jupiter. Presumably, the gas giant, with its gravitational force, influenced the orbits of two cosmic bodies in such a way that they approached Mars and were captured by it.

Some scientists, however, hold an alternative point of view. They talk about the contradiction of the existing hypothesis with the laws of physics and put forward their theory. According to her, Phobos and Deimos never belonged to the asteroids. They were parts of the only moon of Mars, torn to pieces by the gravity of the Red Planet. The most massive and largest part was pulled closer to the surface and was named Phobos, while the less impressive and light one began to orbit in a distant orbit and turned into Deimos. According to astronomers who adhere to this version, evidence of it can be obtained after more detailed study soil composition on the two moons of Mars.

Astronomers' plans

Satellites - perfect place to observe Mars. Astronomers plan to organize on them something like a base from which, with the help of robots, more detailed map Mars. It is easier to get almost any information about the planet from a satellite. Of course, the greatest hopes in this sense are pinned on Deimos, which does not face such a sad fate as Phobos.

Both satellites circling the Red Planet have not yet told people about themselves, just like Mars itself. However, the relatively close location to the Earth allows us to hope for the soonest satisfaction of the curiosity of scientists. However, one cannot vouch for this with all confidence: the cosmos is capable of offering a hundred more questions for each answer found.

Mars is a wealthy planet and quite strange. She still hasn't answered many questions. And then there are these two moons: Phobos and Deimos. After all, these two cosmic bodies are not at all like our earthly moon. Natural satellites are more like asteroids.

Both natural satellites are just tiny. Phobos is only twenty-two kilometers, and Deimos is thirteen kilometers. Moreover, these sizes make them not just small moons, but also the tiniest formations in our system.

The composition is also somewhat unusual. Most of the moon material is carbonaceous chondrite type I and type II. And their elongated forms are not at all associated with ordinary moons of other planets. Moreover, even if you look from the surface of Mars, it is difficult to immediately understand that this is not a passing asteroid, but a satellite of the planet. Deimos, to be honest, because of its range looks like a star and is very similar to the terrestrial Venus. As for Phobos, it is located on the closest trajectory in comparison with other moons to its own planet. And yet, even under such conditions, it looks only like a third of the moon.

Phobos is moving six thousand kilometers from its home planet. There are tons of debris on the surface of the satellite, which may have been formed during the formation of Mars, when it was subjected to many blows by flying space bodies. The speed of this moon is such that it crosses the same region of the sky over Mars every four hours. The Phobos Pass starts from the east and moves towards the west.

The distance from Mars to Deimos is more than twenty thousand kilometers. The passage of this moon takes thirty hours, which is a little more than a Martian day.

Origin

Initially, scientists thought that these two bodies were actually born as asteroids. That is, thanks to the attraction of Jupiter, the future moons were pulled up to Mars, which captured them.

That's just current position lunar orbits suggests that this theory contains many flaws. The satellites have stable orbits and move like the obedient friends of an older brother. Captured space formations do not do this, but continue to move chaotically. It is possible that the atmosphere could have slowed down the moons and even put them in their current orbits. That's just the Martian atmosphere for this too tone and, accordingly, weak.

But it can be assumed that initially Phobos and Deimos were formed as planets, but from the debris left after the formation of the parent planet. Gravity did the rest, creating such bizarre shapes.

Another theory suggests that the two satellites may have a natural history of creation similar to the earth's moon. Indeed, in the process of the formation of the early solar system, there were many collisions that could break off pieces from Mars.

According to the researchers, the collisions scattered debris around the ring around Mars. And then the material gathered into moons. In addition, there are versions that Phobos, as it approaches the planet, will also be torn apart and scattered around the ring.

There is still much to be learned about the planet itself and its moons, which for a long time no one really knew. And the answers will help expand knowledge about the formation of the entire solar system.

It has been known to man since ancient times. However, it was only in 1877 that they were able to determine how many satellites Mars has. This was done by the American astronomer Asaph Hall. There were two such objects, and they were given the names Phobos and in honor of the sons of the god of war Ares, who accompanied him in battles.

Phobos

Astronomers suggest that it is captured by the gravitational field of Mars. Its dimensions are quite small - the average radius reaches 11 km. Phobos is located closer to its planet than all other known satellites in the solar system. It is separated from the surface of the red planet by 6000 km.

Phobos completes an orbit in less than 8 hours. It rises every 11 hours, which is completely different from the movement of the Moon around the Earth. Phobos rises in the west.
This asteroid is constantly approaching its planet by 1.8 m in 100 years. Scientists predict a collision after 43 million years.

Deimos

Object presumably shares the same origin as its brother. The size of Deimos is even more modest than that of Phobos - the average radius does not exceed 6.2 km.
The asteroid is removed from the surface of Mars at a distance of 23,500 km. It orbits relatively slowly, making a complete revolution in more than thirty hours.
Deimos rises in the east, just like Earth's Moon.

Searching the night sky

Back in the Middle Ages, scientists tried to figure out how many moons Mars had. Renowned astronomers William Herschel and Heinrich Louis D'Arre searched the night sky to no avail.
Johannes Kepler assumed the existence of exactly two such objects as early as 1611. But the scientist's theory was based on an incorrect interpretation of the anagram Galileo Galilei. There was also an assumption that the farther the planet is from the Sun, the more satellites it has. From this, the conclusion was made about the two "accompanying" god of war.
modern science and technology put an end to all assumptions and conjectures. Astronomers no longer face the question of how many moons the planet Mars has.

“... In addition, they discovered two small stars, or two satellites, circling around Mars, of which the inner one is 3 diameters away from the center of the planet, and the outer one is 5; the first rotates in space in 10 hours, and the second in 21.5 in such a way that the ratio of the squares of these periods is very close to the ratio of the cubes of their distances from the center of Mars; this was a convincing proof for them of the manifestation of the same law of gravity that governs the movement around other massive bodies.”

There are many mysteries associated with Mars, and one of them lies in this phrase from Jonathan Swift's novel about the adventures of Gulliver. One and a half hundred years before the discovery of the satellites of Mars English writer managed to predict their existence!

The most surprising detail of this prediction is the short 10-hour orbital period of the inner satellite. It is significantly shorter than the 42-hour period for Io, the fastest of the 10 moons known at the time of Swift, and at the same time, approximately corresponds to the true 8-hour orbital period of Phobos. Swift was not as clairvoyant as it seems at first glance. The choice of distance values ​​equal to three and five planetary diameters coincides very closely with the distance from Jupiter to its satellites Io and Europa. However, it is more difficult to explain why Swift predicted a 10-hour period for the first satellite. Even if we take the system of satellites of Jupiter as a model for the spatial arrangement of the satellites of Mars, then the periods are not derived by simple analogy. If Mars had the same density as the Earth, then the first satellite at a distance of three planetary diameters should rotate in about a day; if the density were the same as that of the planets of the Jupiter group, then the period of revolution should be close to two days. In a passage from Newton's Elements, it is stated that "the smaller planets, other things being equal, have significantly greater density". Jupiter's diameter is about 22 times that of Mars. If we assume that Mars has a density of 22 times that of Jupiter (which now seems absurdly high), then the inner moon should have a 10-hour period. Swift applied Kepler's third law correctly, but it looks like he was helped by a professional.

By the way, Swift was not the only great writer of the eighteenth century who

discovered the moons of Mars. François Marie Voltaire - master of thoughts of a brilliant age

Enlightenment, writing in 1752. fantastic story "Micromegas", also mentioned

"two moons of Mars". But briefly, without the details that Swift listed,

the only "evidence" is this consideration: one moon would be

not enough to illuminate a planet so far from the Sun at night! (He says: “... travelers would see two of its moons near this planet Mars, which were not discovered by our astronomers. I am sure that Father Castel will oppose the existence of these two moons and even quite witty, but I agree with those who argue by analogy method. the best philosophers know how difficult it would be for Mars to possess less than two moons, since it is next from the Sun").

Even earlier, Fontenelle, in his Discourses on the Many Worlds, mentioned that Mars might have moons. There, the student argues as follows: "Nature has given so many moons to Saturn and Jupiter - this is a kind of proof that Mars cannot lack moons."

Intuitive reasoning that Mars has two satellites can be found in the writings of Johannes Kepler, who repeatedly argued from principles based on harmony or analogy. In a letter to Galileo, Kepler wrote: “I am so far from doubting the discovery of four planets surrounding Jupiter that I passionately desire to have a telescope in order to be ahead of you, if possible, in the discovery of two orbiting Mars (the number meets the requirements of proportionality), six or eight around Saturn. and probably one next to

Mercury and Venus." However, before the genuine, and not "science fiction" discovery of the satellites of Mars, mankind had to wait until 1877, which became truly "Martian". Giovanni Schiaparelli at that time literally set the entire astronomical world on its feet, reporting the existence of "channels" and "seas" on the Red Planet. This "Martian fever" also had an objective basis: the year 1877 was the year of the great confrontation, in which Mars and Earth come very close to each other. Such favorable conditions could not be neglected by an experienced astronomer Asaf Hall (1829-1907), who has already earned considerable prestige as one of the best observers and calculators at the Harvard Observatory and professor of mathematics at the Naval Observatory (Washington). August 12, 1877 in the evening, Hall looked through the 26-inch telescope of the M. observatory and saw an object that he called the "Martian star". A week later, Hall was able to verify that this "star" was actually a satellite of Mars, and, in addition, he discovered the second Martian satellite (August 17) From the Earth, Phobos and Deimos are visible only in large telescope as very faint luminous points near the bright Martian disk. (They can be photographed with a ground-based telescope only by covering the image of bright Mars with a special mask.)

Having learned about the discovery from the newspapers, one English schoolgirl suggested to Hall names for new celestial bodies: the god of war in ancient myths is always accompanied by his offspring - Fear and Horror, so let the inner satellite be called Phobos, and the outer Deimos for that is how these words sound in ancient Greek. The names were successful and stuck forever.

Phobos revolves around Mars at a distance of 9400 km from the center of the planet, and the speed of its circulation is so great that it completes one revolution in a third of the Martian day, overtaking the daily rotation of the planet. Because of this, Phobos rises in the west and sinks below the horizon in the east. Deimos behaves more familiar to us. Its distance from the center of the planet is more than 23 thousand kilometers, and for one revolution it takes almost a day more than Phobos.

The latest definitions of the orbits of Phobos and Deimos were published by Sinclair (1972), Shore (1975) and Born and Duxbury (1975). The first two works are based on ground-based observations, the third one is based on photo-television footage from the Mariner-9. All three determinations have comparable accuracy, and the ephemeris based on them allow predicting the positions of satellites with an error of 50 to 100 km.

Until more accurate data on the moons of Mars were obtained, scientists tried to determine the mass of Phobos, erroneously suggesting that the slowdown was caused by its deceleration in the Martian atmosphere. However, the first results discouraged astronomers: it turned out that, despite its large size, the satellite is very light. The well-known astrophysicist Iosif Samuilovich Shklovsky (1962) noted that atmospheric deceleration would be sufficient at a very low density of Phobos, and in this regard put forward a bold and unexpected hypothesis, according to which the satellites of Mars ... are empty inside and, therefore, are of artificial origin. Confirmation of Shklovsky was not confirmed, but it stimulated the research of others possible causes secular acceleration of Phobos. One of them may be tides, caused in the Martian crust by the attraction of the satellite. Pressure solar radiation can also cause a noticeable effect (Vinogradova and Radzievsky, 1965).

This point of view had to be abandoned after space probes transmitted images of the Martian moons to earth. In 1969, the same time that people landed on the Moon, the American automatic interplanetary station Mariner-7 transmitted to Earth a photograph in which Phobos happened to be, and it was clearly distinguishable against the background of the disk of Mars. Moreover, a shadow was visible in the photograph

Phobos on the surface of Mars, and this shadow was not round, but elongated!

Two s later an extra year Phobos and Deimos were specially photographed by the Mariner 9 station. Not only were photographs taken from good resolution, but also the first results of observations using an infrared radiometer and an ultraviolet spectrometer. "Mariner-9" approached the satellites at a distance of 5000 km, so the images showed objects with a diameter of several hundred meters.

Indeed, it turned out that the shape of Phobos and Deimos is extremely far from the correct sphere. Both satellites look like oblong potatoes. Phobos has dimensions of 28*20*18 km. Deimos is smaller, its dimensions are 16*12*10 km. Telemetric space technology made it possible to clarify the dimensions of these celestial bodies, which now will not undergo significant changes. According to the latest data, the semi-major axis of Phobos is 13.5 km, and that of Deimos is 7.5 km, while the minor axis is 9.4 and 5.5 km, respectively. They consist of the same dark rock, similar to the substance of some meteorites and asteroids. The surface of the satellites of Mars turned out to be extremely rugged: they are almost all dotted with ridges and meteorite craters, obviously of impact origin. Probably, the fall of meteorites on the surface unprotected by the atmosphere, which lasted for an extremely long time, could lead to its such ripples.

Nomenclature of names of craters on Phobos and Deimos

The largest crater on Phobos is called stickney(in honor of Hall's astronomer's wife, Angelina Stickney-Hall). Its dimensions are comparable to the dimensions of the satellite itself. The impact that led to the appearance of such a crater should have literally shaken Phobos. The same event probably caused the formation of a system of mysterious parallel furrows near the Stickney crater. They can be traced at distances up to 30 km in length and have a width of 100-200 m at a depth of 10-20 m.

Another feature of the topography of Phobos is of interest. It's about about some mysterious furrows, as if made by a plowman, unknown, but very accurate. At the same time, although they cover more than half of the satellite's surface, all such "ridges" are concentrated in only one region of Phobos in its northern part.

Furrows stretch for tens of kilometers, their width is different areas ranges from 100 to 200 m, the depth is also not the same in different places. How did these furrows form? Some scientists blamed the attraction of Mars for everything, which could distort the face of the satellite with such wrinkles. But it is known that in the initial epoch of its existence, Phobos was farther from its central body than it is now. Only about one billion years ago, gradually approaching Mars, he began to really feel its tidal power. Therefore, the furrows could not have arisen earlier, which contradicts the data, according to which the age of the furrows is much older and may be 3 billion years. In addition, the gravitational influence of Mars on Phobos continues today, which means that quite fresh furrows should exist on its surface, but they are not there.

Other scientists believed that the furrows were made on the surface of the satellite by rock fragments ejected from some still unknown large crater. But not all scientists agreed with this. Some experts consider another hypothesis more plausible, according to which at first there was a single large proto-moon of Mars.

Then this "parent" of both "brothers" - Phobos and Deimos - split into two current satellites, and traces of such a cataclysm furrow.

Analysis of photographs sent to Earth by the Viking-2 orbital compartment, in which the surfaces of the satellites of Mars are painted in dark colors, showed that such coloration is most often characteristic of rocks containing a lot of carbonaceous substances. But in those relatively close regions of the solar system, where the orbit of Mars lies with its

satellites, carbonaceous substances are not formed in abundant quantities. So Phobos and Deimos are most likely "aliens", not "natives". If they really formed somewhere in a relatively distant corner of the solar system, then by the time they were captured by the gravitational field of the Red Planet, they, apparently, were a single body, which then split into several fragments. Some of these debris fell on the surface of Mars, some went into space, and two debris became satellites of the planet.

However, one should also listen to opponents who reject the emergence of satellites of Mars by capturing a previously independent body and breaking it.

Academician O.Yu.Shmidt, the greatest cosmogonist, once developed a hypothesis of the formation of the solar system, according to which the planets arose by accretion (adhesion) of solid and gaseous particles, which originally constituted a protoplanetary cloud. Soviet followers of O.Yu. Schmidt believe that the satellites of the planets were formed in a similar way. A weighty confirmation of their correctness is the detailed mathematical model, showing exactly how such processes can occur. The capture by the planets of especially large celestial bodies, these researchers consider a very unlikely event.

Craters on Phobos and Deimos are almost equal in size to the satellites themselves. This means that the collisions were catastrophic events for them. The shape of the satellites is very irregular: it cannot be called otherwise than detrital. Therefore, Phobos and Deimos, in principle, can be fragments of a once existing more large body. It was even possible to estimate the approximate dimensions of this body. If its radius reached about 400 km, then the "bombardment" of meteorites would not lead to its destruction, and today bodies circulating around Mars would not be ten or fifteen, but hundreds of kilometers in size.

There is another hypothesis related to the asteroid belt. It is possible that in ancient times some asteroid flew into the atmosphere of Mars, slowed down by it and turned into its satellite. However, the Martian atmosphere would have to be very dense for this.

Supporters of contradictory hypotheses of the origin of the satellites of Mars have weighty arguments, and it's time to decide which of them is right.

One of the most important discoveries space age is proof of the existence of the solar wind. These are powerful streams of charged particles erupted by the Sun. With supersonic speed they rush in outer space, falling on everything that comes in their way. And only those celestial bodies, which, like our Earth, have a sufficiently strong magnetic field that serves as a strong shield against such magnetic flux are not fully exposed to the solar wind.

Soviet interplanetary stations "Mars-2" and "Mars-3" launched in 1971-1972. observed how the solar wind interacts with the Red Planet. The stations sent information to Earth, according to which the solar wind does not reach the surface of Mars, but stumbles upon an obstacle and begins to flow around the planet from all sides. This flow began either closer to Mars, or further away from it (depending on the strength of the "attacking" particles and the resistance of the "defending" magnetic field planet), but the average distance from the center of the planet was about

4800 km. Further studies showed that in a certain region of the near-Martian outer space the accumulation of ions is more than ten times less than in others. And the energy spectrum of these charged particles is completely different.

The strange area did not stay in one place. When her movements were investigated, it turned out that she moves with Deimos, all the while hiding behind him at a distance of about 20,000 km. The Soviet astrophysicist A.V. Bogdanov suggested that, obviously, there is a strong release of gases from the surface of Mars, which interact with the surrounding space. When Deimos passes directly between Mars and the Sun, the area where the solar wind collides with the Martian magnetosphere moves away from the planet, as if the “defensive” side, having received reinforcements, can drive off the “advancing ones”, and the size of the Martian magnetosphere becomes much larger. But until now it was believed that small bodies of our solar system, such as, for example, asteroids or small satellites of planets like Deimos, are powerless to influence the powerful flow of the solar wind.

Another oddity that the researchers of the satellites of Mars drew attention to: large craters, whose diameter exceeds 500 m, are found on Deimos about as often as on Phobos. But there are very few small craters with which Phobos is simply strewn on Deimos. The fact is that the surface of Deimos is littered with finely crushed stones and dust, and small craters are filled to the brim, so the surface of Deimos looks smoother. The question arises: why does no one, figuratively speaking, fill up the pits on Phobos? There is a hypothesis that Phobos and Deimos are subjected to a powerful meteorite bombardment - after all, they do not have an atmosphere that would serve as a reliable shield. When a meteorite body hits the surface of Phobos, the resulting dust and small stones mostly fly away from its surface: the strong gravity of the relatively close Mars "takes" them away from the satellite.

And Deimos is much further from the planet, so the meteorite stones and dust thrown out when falling onto its surface largely hang in the orbit of Deimos. Returning to the previous point of the orbit, the Horror gradually collects fragments and dust again, they settle on its surface and bury many fresh craters above them, and first of all those that are smaller.

The upper, loose layer of the Moon, Mars, its satellites, that part of their surface, which corresponds to the soil on Earth, is called regolith. It can now be considered established that the regolith of the Martian moons is similar to what is observed on our "terrestrial" Moon. In fact, the presence of regolith on Phobos and Deimos surprised scientists at first. After all, the second space velocity, upon reaching which any object goes into interplanetary space, on such small celestial bodies it is only some 10 m / s. Therefore, when a meteorite hits, any cobblestone here becomes a “space projectile”.

Detailed pictures of Deimos made it possible to discover an as yet inexplicable fact: it turns out that some crater walls and approximately ten-meter stone blocks scattered over the surface of Deimos are decorated with a long plume. These trails look like a rather long strip, formed as if by fine-grained material ejected from the depths. There is something similar on Mars, but it seems that these bands look a little different there. In any case, specialists again have something to break their heads over ....

In 1945, astronomer B.P. Sharpless came to the conclusion that Phobos has a secular acceleration in its movement around Mars. And this meant that the satellite was moving faster and faster in a very, very gentle spiral, gradually slowing down and getting closer

approaching the surface of the planet. Sharpless's calculations showed that if nothing changes, then in some 15 million years, Phobos will fall to Mars and die.

But now the space age has come, and mankind has become closer problems astronomy. About braking processes artificial satellites in the atmosphere of the Earth, the broad masses recognized. Well, since Mars also has an atmosphere, though it is very rarefied, can it not, by its friction, cause the secular acceleration of Phobos? In 1959 I.S. Shklovsky

performed the corresponding calculations and arrived at a conclusion that caused ferment both in the minds of scientists and in the minds of the general public. The secular acceleration that we observe in the rarefied upper atmosphere of Mars can only be explained if we assume that Phobos has a very low density, so low that it would not allow the satellite to fall apart if it is hollow. As befits a scientist, I.S. Shklovsky did not make any categorical statements; he himself considered the question he posed to be a "very radical and not quite ordinary" suggestion.

In 1973, the Leningrad scientist V.A. Shor and his colleagues at the Institute of Theoretical Astronomy of the USSR Academy of Sciences completed the processing of over five thousand exhaustive data collected over almost a century since the discovery of Phobos and Deimos. It turned out that Phobos is still accelerating. True, much weaker than Sharpless thought.

And since there is acceleration, we can predict the fate of Phobos: in no more than 100 million years, he will get so close to Mars, cross the fatal Roche limit and be torn apart by tidal forces. Part of the debris of the satellite will fall on Mars, and part will probably present itself to our descendants in the form of a beautiful ring, similar to the one that Saturn is now famous for.

As for Deimos, no one has any doubts here: it does not have secular acceleration.

Both satellites experience a strong tidal effect from Mars, so they always turn the same side towards it. Phobos and Deimos move in almost circular orbits lying in the plane of the planet's equator.

Does Mars still have some satellites, hitherto unknown? This question was raised by J.P. Kuiper, director of the Lunar and Planetary Observatory at the University of Arizona. In order to answer this question, he developed a special photographic technique that makes it possible to capture even very faintly luminous objects. All his research did not lead to the discovery of a new satellite of Mars.

Then the search for an unknown satellite of Mars was carried out by an employee of the NASA Ames Research Center in California, J.B. Polak. His research was also unsuccessful. So it can still be considered that only Fear and Horror accompany the heavenly incarnation of the god of war.

Some researchers believe that the satellites of Mars came to him “not of their own free will”, but were captured from the asteroid belt. As you can see, the god of war is not dangerous for the Earth, but is harsh with his associates.

Russia is preparing space mission"Phobos-Grunt" - repeated landing attempt after "Phobos-2" spacecraft on the surface of the Martian satellite, the study of its rocks and - which was previously unthinkable - the delivery to Earth of the extracted samples. Estimated time for the entire operation - 2005-2008.

Material used:

1. Encyclopedia “Astronomy. Comprehension of the Universe, the mysteries of stars and galaxies,

space and life.

2. Physics of the planet Mars. V.I.Moroz.

3. Satellites of Mars. Edited by P. Seidelman (Director Nautical Naval Office. U.S.

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Books

  • Face of Mars. Lunar infantry. Scramble for Europe by Ian Douglas. Mars. Moon. Satellites of Jupiter. Artifacts of the "foreign" civilization were found here. Unique Secrets aliens should become the property of mankind ... But this is hardly possible in a world where ...
  • Moons of Mars, . The book tells about the satellites of Mars - Phobos and Deimos, about the history of their discovery, progress in the study over the past ten years thanks to research conducted from spacecraft. ...