Phobos Might Only Have 10 Million Years to Live

Written by Fraser Cain

You can breathe easily. The Moon is slowly receding away from the Earth at a rate of 3.7 cm/year (1.5 in/yr). But the Martians aren't so lucky. Their moon Phobos is known to be doing exactly the opposite. It's spiraling inward, and in the distant future it will crash into the surface of Mars. Researchers originally thought that Phobos has about 50 million years to go, but an Indian researcher has re-run the calculations and thinks Phobos only has about a quarter of that time to live.

It was originally believed that Phobos would take about 50 million years to crash into the surface of Mars, but according to Bijay Kumar Sharma, an Assistant Professor at the National Institute of Technology in Bihar, India, it might happen much more quickly. Dr. Sharma has revised the calculations for Phobos' destruction in his new paper, Theoretical Formulation of the Phobos, moon of Mars, rate of altitudinal loss.

According to Sharma, Phobos will actually be destroyed about 10.4 million years from now, and not the 50 million years the researchers had previously calculated.

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