Dynamical evidence for Phobos and Deimos as remnants of a disrupted common progenitor

Bagheri, Amirhossein; Khan, Amir; Efroimsky, Michael; Kruglyakov, Mikhail; Giardini, Domenico

doi:10.1038/s41550-021-01306-2

Cited by 29 publications

(54 citation statements)

References 31 publications

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“…These orbits are different from that of Earth's Moon, for example, which moves within a more or less ecliptic plane. The orbits of Phobos and Deimos suggest that these satellites formed from large impact ejecta from Mars that then accumulated/coalesced (Bagheri et al, 2021). Alternatively, these satellites may have formed at the same time as proto-Mars itself.…”

Section: The Martian Satellitesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency has a Mars moon sample return mission planned for launch in 2024 to Phobos and Deimos; the Martian Moon eXploration Mission (MMX). The orbits of these satellites suggest that they formed either from large impact ejecta from Mars that then accumulated, or at the same time as proto-Mars itself (Bagheri et al, 2021), although they share morphological and spectral characteristics with asteroids (See Early Mars section). Subsequent to their formation, the martian moons accreted materials transported from Mars, probably delivered from cataclysmic impact events on the planet.…”

Section: Martian Moon Exploration Sample Returnmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Mars: new insights and unresolved questions

Changela

Chatzitheodoridis

Antunes

et al. 2021

International Journal of Astrobiology

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Mars exploration motivates the search for extraterrestrial life, the development of space technologies, and the design of human missions and habitations. Here, we seek new insights and pose unresolved questions relating to the natural history of Mars, habitability, robotic and human exploration, planetary protection, and the impacts on human society. Key observations and findings include: – high escape rates of early Mars' atmosphere, including loss of water, impact present-day habitability; – putative fossils on Mars will likely be ambiguous biomarkers for life; – microbial contamination resulting from human habitation is unavoidable; and – based on Mars' current planetary protection category, robotic payload(s) should characterize the local martian environment for any life-forms prior to human habitation. Some of the outstanding questions are: – which interpretation of the hemispheric dichotomy of the planet is correct; – to what degree did deep-penetrating faults transport subsurface liquids to Mars' surface; – in what abundance are carbonates formed by atmospheric processes; – what properties of martian meteorites could be used to constrain their source locations; – the origin(s) of organic macromolecules; – was/is Mars inhabited; – how can missions designed to uncover microbial activity in the subsurface eliminate potential false positives caused by microbial contaminants from Earth; – how can we ensure that humans and microbes form a stable and benign biosphere; and – should humans relate to putative extraterrestrial life from a biocentric viewpoint (preservation of all biology), or anthropocentric viewpoint of expanding habitation of space? Studies of Mars' evolution can shed light on the habitability of extrasolar planets. In addition, Mars exploration can drive future policy developments and confirm (or put into question) the feasibility and/or extent of human habitability of space.

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Section: The Martian Satellitesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Martian Moon Exploration Sample Returnmentioning

confidence: 99%

Mars: new insights and unresolved questions

Changela

Chatzitheodoridis

Antunes

et al. 2021

International Journal of Astrobiology

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“…During the deceleration of the spin of the planetary objects, heat is produced by friction, which, in addition to radiogenic heating, changes the thermal structure of the planet. As the planetary objects thermally evolve, their interior properties change, which in turn, influences their tidal response (e.g., Robuchon and Nimmo, 2011;Saxena et al, 2018;Samuel et al, 2019;Bagheri et al, 2021;Renaud et al, 2021). Hence, the tidal and thermal evolution co-modulate, necessitating their joint consideration in evaluating the evolution of planetary systems.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Saxena et al (2018), for example, observed that subsurface oceans containing a small amount of impurities and tidal heating due to initially high spin rates may enable liquid water and cryovolcanism to persist until the present (Moore et al, 2016;Neveu et al, 2015;Beyer et al, 2019). Yet, these studies generally did not consider dissipation in both bodies and relied on tidal evolution models that are inadequate for the case of a highly eccentric and nonsynchronously rotating system (Bagheri et al, 2021;Renaud et al, 2021). Specifically, tidal models that truncate eccentricity functions to 2 (where is eccentricity) on eccentric orbits (>0.1) impart changes in spin rate evolution, spin-orbit resonances, and errors in heating rates that typically increase significantly for very high eccentricity (>0.5), which is not observed when higher-order terms are included.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…With this in mind, it is the purpose here to build upon and extend earlier studies on the evolution of the Pluto-Charon system by combining the comprehensive tidal model of Bagheri et al (2021) that incorporates a proper viscoelastic description of the tidal response of icy worlds with the parameterized thermal convection models of Deschamps and Vilella (2021) (icy crust) that takes into account the effect of impurities in the liquid ocean and Samuel et al (2019) (silicate core). This approach will enable an extensive analysis of 1) the tidal-thermal evolution of the Pluto-Charon system, allowing us to assess the relative role of radiogenic to tidal heating and 2) the conditions required for the formation and maintenance of subsurface liquid oceans up until the present.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The Tidal-Thermal Evolution of the Pluto-Charon System

Bagheri,

Khan,

Deschamps

et al. 2021

Preprint

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The existence of subsurface oceans on the satellites of the giant planets and Trans-Neptunian objects has been predicted for some time. Liquid oceans on icy worlds, if present, exert a considerable influence on the dynamics of the ice-ocean system and, because of the astrobiological potential, represent an important objective for future missions to the outer solar system. The Pluto-Charon system is representative of an icy moon orbiting a dwarf planet that is believed to have formed from the remnants of a giant impact. The evolution of icy moons is primarily controlled by the mode and efficiency of heat transfer through the outer ice shell, which is influenced by the presence of impurities, by tidal dissipation in the ice shell, and by the radioactive element budget in the silicate core. Previous studies on the evolution of the Pluto-Charon system generally considered either only the thermal or the tidal evolution, and in the cases where both were considered, the important effect of the presence of impurities in the liquid oceans was not addressed. Here, we consider the joint tidal-thermal evolution of the Pluto-Charon system by combining a comprehensive tidal model that incorporates a viscoelastic description of the tidal response with a parameterized thermal convection model developed for icy worlds. This approach enables an extensive analysis of the conditions required for the formation and maintenance of subsurface liquid oceans up to the present. Our results show that because of relatively fast circularization and synchronization of the orbits of Pluto and Charon, tidal heating is only important during the early stages of evolution (<1 Myr). As part of our study, we test the sensitivity of our results to a number of parameters, including initial orbital and thermal parameters. In all the studied cases, oceans on Pluto are always predicted to remain liquid to the present, ranging in thickness from 40 km to 150-km, whereas oceans on Charon, while in-place for close to 4 Gyr, have solidified. This is supported by New Horizons observations of primarily extensional faults on Pluto and both extensional and compressional faults on Charon.

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The Origins and Geological Histories of Deimos and Phobos: Hypotheses and Open Questions

Ramsley

Head

2021

Space Sci Rev

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Dynamical evidence for Phobos and Deimos as remnants of a disrupted common progenitor

Cited by 29 publications

References 31 publications

Mars: new insights and unresolved questions

Mars: new insights and unresolved questions

The Tidal-Thermal Evolution of the Pluto-Charon System

The Origins and Geological Histories of Deimos and Phobos: Hypotheses and Open Questions

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