People may soon observe Mars with a ring system similar to Saturn, a new study predicts. This comes from the recent announcement of NASA about the potential destruction of its moon Phobos due to tidal forces from the Red Planet.

Scientists from the University of California, Berkeley estimate that the disintegrated moon may form the Martian ring with a comparable mass density to Saturn’s rings. Mars was recently found to cause stress marks on Phobos due to its tidal forces, pulling the moon and might be responsible to its fading structural integrity.

Phobos, currently orbiting Mars from 6,000 kilometres, is slowly approaching the Red Planet, moving a number of centimetres every year. A new study shows that the ongoing gravitational attraction between Mars and the larger moon may lead to the destruction in the next 20 to 40 million years.

But the disintegration would only take a small period of time, researchers said in the study published in the journal Nature Geoscience. The ring could potentially form in a matter of days or weeks, according to analysis of observational data and a geotechnical model that measures the strength of Phobos.

“If you were standing on the surface of Mars, you could grab a lawn chair and watch Phobos shearing out and spreading into a big circle,” researcher Benjamin Black told the Nature.

Some scientists raised the possibility of a collision between Mars and its moon due to the gravitational attraction. But researchers of the current study said that Phobos would first turn into fragments before any planetary collision.

“We suggest that – with continued inward migration of the moon – the weakest material will disperse tidally in 20 to 40 million years to form a Martian ring,” the researchers stated. “We predict that this ring will persist for [1 million to 100 million years] and will initially have a comparable mass density to that of Saturn’s rings.”

But a reduced collision could still occur after the ring formation, they added. Any large fragment of the moon could be strong enough to escape the tidal breakup and eventually collide with Mars in an “oblique, low-velocity impact.”

Researchers say that the findings may help explain the formation of the rings of Saturn. But Mars is not the only planet in the Solar System with the potential of being surrounded by a ring in the future.

The largest moon of Neptune, known as Triton, has been found with the similar stress marks present on Phobos. ScienceAlert reported that the moon is believed to be moving closer to Neptune, making it a candidate for disintegration.

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