IFL Science by James Felton 7/22/2023
"We shall go down together."
NASA's Perseverance Rover captured a gorgeous view of Phobos eclipsing the Sun, from the surface of Mars. From the point of view of any Martian microbes lurking out there, the eclipse may have seemed more ominous (yeah ok, there might not be living organisms up there, let alone ones sentient enough to grasp the concept of an eclipse) as the moon is destined by physics to one day slam into the red planet.
Phobos – the closest of Mars' two moons – is set to get ever closer to the planet, before its final descent, while Deimos will drift ever outwards until it leaves Mars' orbit.
"Phobos is nearing Mars at a rate of six feet (1.8 meters) every hundred years; at that rate, it will either crash into Mars in 50 million years or break up into a ring," says NASA's page on the Martian moon.
More:
https://www.iflscience.com/phobos-the-doomed-moon-is-going-to-crash-into-mars-69949
