Scientists theorize that many millions of years ago, Mars had
rings just like Saturn, and it looks like the Red
Planet could be due for a new set of rings
in the future.
How exactly would this happen?
Would these rings clutter up Martian orbit?
And how soon would these new rings start raining down
on Mars?
This is what if, and here's what would happen if
Mars had rings like Saturn.
The four gas giants in our solar system, Jupiter, Uranus,
Neptune and Saturn all have ring systems surrounding them.
Of those, Saturn has the largest and Mars could join
the club.
Scientists studying Martian moons Phobos and Demos suggest that Mars
could have had several more moons, including one up to
20 times larger than Phobos.
Over billions of years, these moons could have been destroyed
and become part of an ancient ring system.
Could Phobos and Demos be next on the Martian moon
chopping block?
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Phobos is orbiting Mars only about 6000 kilometers from the
planet's surface, and it's slowly losing altitude.
Eventually, it will reach the Roche limit.
This is the closest a big space body can come
to a planet and still be held together by its
gravitational forces.
For Phobos, the estimated Roche limit is 5470 kilometers from
Mars.
At this point, the tidal forces of Mars would start
to pull the moon apart.
After breaking into carbonaceous chondrite meteorites, the Stony rocks and
dust would form a thin, dark ring around the planet.
You'd find that the smaller Martian moon, Demos, would still
exist.
That's because it orbits Mars from a comfortable 20,069 kilometers
from the surface.
Demos would now mark the outer edge of this new
ring.
This dramatic reshaping of objects in Mars's orbit could have
a big impact on any plans you could have to
leave Earth and settle on Mars.
Well, maybe not your plans, but more like the plans
of your future descendants.
Scientists expect that Phobos won't get ripped apart into rings
for about 50 million years.
The development of rings around the Red Planet would be
a challenge for space flights.
It would be difficult to navigate or transport people and
resources.
Even the most routine trips on or off Mars would
become hazardous rides, and a ring system would block some
sunlight, having huge effects on our human settlements.
On the surface, Mars is already a frozen planet with
an average surface temperature of -63°, so things would get
even colder.
Let's hope your descendants brought enough warm space suits and
even more danger would lie ahead.
Eventually all the objects in the ring would come crashing
down on Mars.
Big rocks would leave massive new craters on the planet's
surface.
If it's anything like what happens on Saturn, Martian settlers
could face massive storms of rock and dust falling to
the surface at 10,000 kilograms per second.
The future of humanity would depend on our ability to
create new technologies to blast apart these falling objects before
they crush us.
Luckily for us, this would happen sometime between 1,000,000 and
100 million years after the ring forms.
Yeah, we'd have plenty of time to come up with
a solution.
Maybe we could just nuke all those space rocks before
they crush our Martian dream.
Well, that's a story for another What if?