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February 10, 2021 New research suggests that particles escaping from Mars’ atmosphere have been accumulating on the surface of the planet’s largest moon Phobos for billions of years. They could provide important new details about the history of both worlds. Mars’ largest moon Phobos, as seen by NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter spacecraft on March 23, 2008. Image via NASA/ JPL-Caltech/ University of Arizona. A new study suggests that Mars’ larger moon Phobos orbits through a stream of charged particles flowing off the planet’s atmosphere. The findings, published February 1, 2021,...

Runaway ions from Mars may prove or disprove the idea that Mars was once much more Earthlike, with a thick atmosphere and liquid water on its surface. There could have even been some sort of life. Whatever is left of the Red Planet’s atmosphere (if you could even call it that) has less than one percent of Earth’s atmospheric density. Phobos is thought to have collected quite a few ions from Mars because it orbits extremely close to the planet. Because it is tidally locked, like our Moon, so one side is always facing Mars. That side has been exposed to anywhere from 20 to 100 times more io...

Could the Surface of Phobos Reveal Secrets of the Martian Past? The Martian moon Phobos orbits through a stream of charged atoms and molecules that flow off the Red Planet’s atmosphere, new research shows. Many of these charged particles, or ions, of oxygen, carbon, nitrogen, and argon, have been escaping Mars for billions of years as the planet has been shedding its atmosphere. Some ions, scientists predict, have been smashing into the surface of Phobos and could be preserved in its uppermost layer, according to a paper published on Feb. 1 in the journal Nature Geoscience. This means that ...