Moons Of The Terrestrial Planets - 1493 Words

Moons of the Terrestrial Planets 2.2. Moons of Mars 2.2.1 Introduction Mars orbits at a distance of 1.52 AU from the Sun. Mars has two natural satellites, discovered by Asaph Hall in 1877. The innermost of these, Phobos, is about 22.2 km in diameter (27.0Ãâ€"21.6Ãâ€" 18.8) and orbits the planet with a period far less than Mars s period of rotation 7.7 hr. (only one quarter that of Deimos), causing it to rise in the west and set in the east(Born Duxbury 1975). Thus, it makes more than 3 orbits in a single Martian day. As it orbits, it slowly spirals in towards the Martian surface. Phobos is drawing closer to Mars by 2 meters every one hundred years, and it is predicted that it will collide with the planet /or destroyed in the atmosphere. Phobos has a semi-major axis 9376 km (2.76 Mars radii), eccentricity 0.0152 and orbit mean inclination 1.1o (relative to Mars’ equator). The outer satellite, Deimos, is about 12.6 km in diameter (15.0Ãâ€"12.2Ãâ€" 11.0) and orbital period about 30 hr. In fact, Deimos is the smallest known moon in the Solar System. Like our own Moon, Deimos orbits far enough away from Mars that it is being, slowly pushed farther and farther away from the planet. Deimos has a semi-major axis 23463.2 km (6.92 Mars radii), eccentricity 0.0003 and orbit mean inclination 2.4o (relative to Mars’ equator). Both Deimos and Phobos have very circular orbits, which lie almost exactly in Mars s equatorial plane. They are both small, irregular objects comparable in size to theShow MoreRelatedPhysics Of The Moon And Mercury1525 Words   |  7 Pagesfirst glance, the Moon and Mercury have similar surface features yet on closer inspection we find that significant differences exist. Compare and contrast the surfaces of the two bodies and outline their respective geological histories. The geology of the moon and mercury are very similar due to certain key aspects, but there are also a few qualities that differentiate the two bodies. 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