中文翻譯:
在遙遠的火星上，有兩顆小小的月亮，分別叫做Phobos和Deimos，這兩個名字來自希臘文，意指「恐懼」和「驚慌」。這些火星月亮可能是早期從小行星帶中捕獲而來的小行星，或者是來自我們太陽系更遠處的地方。Phobos是較大的那顆，它長得像一個布滿撞擊坑的小行星。Phobos距離火星非常近，只有5800公里，比起我們的月亮距離地球的40萬公里要近得多。由於引力的影響，Phobos正在慢慢地朝火星掉落。也許在5000萬年後，Phobos將會碎裂成一圈環狀的塵埃。對於這個小小的月亮，未來的命運可不太妙哦！
原文:
This moon is doomed. Mars, the red planet named for the Roman god of war, has two tiny moons, Phobos and Deimos, whose names are derived from the Greek for Fear and Panic. These Martian moons may well be captured asteroids originating in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter or perhaps from even more distant reaches of our Solar System. The larger moon, Phobos, is indeed seen to be a cratered, asteroid-like object in this stunning color image from the robotic Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, which can image objects as small as 10 meters. But Phobos orbits so close to Mars – about 5,800 kilometers above the surface compared to 400,000 kilometers for our Moon – that gravitational tidal forces are dragging it down. In perhaps 50 million years, Phobos is expected to disintegrate into a ring of debris.
來源:NASA每日圖片
