Phobos is going to fall into Mars

[KAL 9000]

According to NASA and Wikipedia (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phobos_(moon)#Predicted_destruction), Phobos will eventually crash into Mars. Poor thing.

[SargeRho]

We should mine it. And build a space elevator out of it.

[StrandedonEarth]

Kim Stanley Robinson's Red Mars includes the...

Spoiler

 deliberate de-orbiting of Phobos, as well as a spectacular description of what happens when the space elevator is cut.

Spoiler

hmm, I can't seem to delete this accidental extra spoiler tag

 

Edited March 6, 2016 by StrandedonEarth

[cubinator]

Before it impacts, it will likely break up into a planetary ring. It does seem to be just a big, loosely held together lump of rubble, after all.

Edited March 6, 2016 by cubinator

[Findthepin1]

Considering the existence of a spacefaring civilization a planet away, I find it very, very, very, very unlikely that Phobos is going to get the chance to fall into Mars.

[fredinno]

3 hours ago, KAL 9000 said:

According to NASA and Wikipedia (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phobos_(moon)#Predicted_destruction), Phobos will eventually crash into Mars. Poor thing.

In other news, people are living on the ISS. I think everyone knew this on this forum, TBH.

21 minutes ago, Findthepin1 said:

Considering the existence of a spacefaring civilization a planet away, I find it very, very, very, very unlikely that Phobos is going to get the chance to fall into Mars.

Phobos is too big to be moved to a GEO orbit around Mars. Not to mention that it will first form a ring- it's very loosely kept together, and it's already starting to crack.

[cubinator]

30 minutes ago, Findthepin1 said:

Considering the existence of a spacefaring civilization a planet away, I find it very, very, very, very unlikely that Phobos is going to get the chance to fall into Mars.

But this is over 30 million years in the future. Think of how far we've come in the last ten years, in the last hundred, in the last thousand. 30 million years ago, the world was very different from what it is today. With our accelerating rate of development, we may have all the planets colonized by 2500. It's impossible to know what our motives will be in 30 million years. We might move away from space exploration, choosing instead to live entirely virtual lives. We might leave this solar system and head for the stars. I'm not sure there will ever be any good reason for us to move Phobos, but then again, we never know...

Edited March 6, 2016 by cubinator

[p1t1o]

11 hours ago, Findthepin1 said:

Considering the existence of a spacefaring civilization a planet away, I find it very, very, very, very unlikely that Phobos is going to get the chance to fall into Mars.

"spacefaring"...

[Darnok]

Maybe we should sped up things and make it hit Mars as soon as possible?

[Darnok]

11 hours ago, cubinator said:

But this is over 30 million years in the future. Think of how far we've come in the last ten years, in the last hundred, in the last thousand. 30 million years ago, the world was very different from what it is today. With our accelerating rate of development, we may have all the planets colonized by 2500. It's impossible to know what our motives will be in 30 million years. We might move away from space exploration, choosing instead to live entirely virtual lives. We might leave this solar system and head for the stars. I'm not sure there will ever be any good reason for us to move Phobos, but then again, we never know...

Based on our history I would say exploration and searching for habitable spots is good at early era. Just look how people grow on Earth, first we settle near rivers, because there were things we needed. Then we went further into land, because we learned how to make wells and shape land to fills our needs.
IMO we are going to do same thing with space exploration... first we are going to search for "good spots", but later we are going to shape things as we need. Just look at UAE or China artificial islands this is late era of Earth exploration... in late space exploration era we are going to create planets of even solar systems and 30 millions years is rather late era for our kind

[Evanitis]

12 hours ago, fredinno said:

In other news, people are living on the ISS. I think everyone knew this on this forum, TBH.

You overestimate us. There are many seasoned players (I guess) who never knew you also have to go sideways to reach orbit before trying KSP.

On topic... So we gonna lose Phobos... Nooo! I loved that planet in Warframe... And I can't wait to see what will be there in the Expanse series. I'm sad. Let me check how much time I have to enjoy the though of it's still being there... 30–50 million years? That sounds all right, I'm not that sad anymore. I was half-expecting it to happen in this decade. Or on Wednesday.

Though I indeed knew about people on the ISS.

[mikegarrison]

The Sun is going to expand out to beyond the orbit of the Earth.

Nothing lasts forever.

[Bill Phil]

33 minutes ago, mikegarrison said:

The Sun is going to expand out to beyond the orbit of the Earth.

Nothing lasts forever.

We actually don't know that for sure. It's hard to tell.

What will end up happening is the death of the Sun, that's guaranteed. It might expand and absorb the Earth, or, due to weird physics,  Earth's orbit might expand, although it seems more likely that it'll be absorbed.

We actually can't predict the orbits of the planets that far in the future.

2 hours ago, p1t1o said:

"spacefaring"...

Only by choice.

[mikegarrison]

2 minutes ago, Bill Phil said:

We actually don't know that for sure. It's hard to tell.

What will end up happening is the death of the Sun, that's guaranteed. It might expand and absorb the Earth, or, due to weird physics,  Earth's orbit might expand, although it seems more likely that it'll be absorbed.

We actually can't predict the orbits of the planets that far in the future.

I should have more clearly said that the Sun will expand to beyond the current orbit of the Earth. As you say, it's not clear whether the Earth will still be there to be enveloped by it.

[fredinno]

8 hours ago, Darnok said:

Based on our history I would say exploration and searching for habitable spots is good at early era. Just look how people grow on Earth, first we settle near rivers, because there were things we needed. Then we went further into land, because we learned how to make wells and shape land to fills our needs.
IMO we are going to do same thing with space exploration... first we are going to search for "good spots", but later we are going to shape things as we need. Just look at UAE or China artificial islands this is late era of Earth exploration... in late space exploration era we are going to create planets of even solar systems and 30 millions years is rather late era for our kind

Yeah, we havn't even started colonizing the oceans though- so maybe this isn't the end of Earth exploration?

5 hours ago, Bill Phil said:

We actually don't know that for sure. It's hard to tell.

What will end up happening is the death of the Sun, that's guaranteed. It might expand and absorb the Earth, or, due to weird physics,  Earth's orbit might expand, although it seems more likely that it'll be absorbed.

We actually can't predict the orbits of the planets that far in the future.

Only by choice.

Either way, Earth is going to be burnt to a crisp. I don't think it matters that much.

[cubinator]

3 hours ago, fredinno said:

Yeah, we havn't even started colonizing the oceans though- so maybe this isn't the end of Earth exploration?

Either way, Earth is going to be burnt to a crisp. I don't think it matters that much.

Unless we find a way to move it. We're talking billions of years to figure things out, so it might just be possible.

[mikegarrison]

1 hour ago, cubinator said:

Unless we find a way to move it. We're talking billions of years to figure things out, so it might just be possible.

LOL at the idea humans will be around billions of years from now.

[Mitchz95]

2 hours ago, cubinator said:

Unless we find a way to move it. We're talking billions of years to figure things out, so it might just be possible.

If we ever have that kind of technology, I doubt we'd have reason to use it. The universe is a pretty big place; there are plenty of worlds to colonize or even build from scratch. Earth would be pretty much used up by then.

[cubinator]

1 hour ago, mikegarrison said:

LOL at the idea humans will be around billions of years from now.

We won't look the same. We can't imagine what we will be like. But just as there are still birds and crocodiles after the dinosaurs died off, something of us will likely survive. Maybe the sentient robots we leave behind will build upon human scientific knowledge and invent some amazing technology we can't even imagine today. I find it hard to believe humans will wipe ourselves out, some natural event would probably have to be the cause of our extinction. It may take only an asteroid, or it could take a massive volcanic event, or maybe the only thing that can stop us is the sun's death. But I am fairly confident that humanity's descendants will still be alive hundreds of millions of years in the future.

[mikegarrison]

4 minutes ago, cubinator said:

We won't look the same. We can't imagine what we will be like. But just as there are still birds and crocodiles after the dinosaurs died off, something of us will likely survive. Maybe the sentient robots we leave behind will build upon human scientific knowledge and invent some amazing technology we can't even imagine today. I find it hard to believe humans will wipe ourselves out, some natural event would probably have to be the cause of our extinction. It may take only an asteroid, or it could take a massive volcanic event, or maybe the only thing that can stop us is the sun's death. But I am fairly confident that humanity's descendants will still be alive hundreds of millions of years in the future.

The non-bird dinosaurs died off tens of millions of years ago.

A billion years ago plants didn't even exist.

[kerbiloid]

We definitely need a way to find out that Solar System 30 million years later — just to watch this perfomance and to verify our theories..

[FancyMouse]

Actually I'm quite optimistic we can have similar creature like us millions years later or more. More precisely, after we developed some technology that allows us to travel at relativistic speed.

[PB666]

https://news.cnrs.fr/articles/solved-the-mystery-of-the-martian-moons

 

[kerbiloid]

1 hour ago, PB666 said:

https://news.cnrs.fr/articles/solved-the-mystery-of-the-martian-moons

A keyphrase. Even if concrete evidence is still required to confirm the team’s scenario
Those capture scenarios are so dull. An impact badaboom is much more impressive.