Simultaneous Double Transits of Phobos and Deimos as Seen from the Martian Surface: A Millennium Catalogue
Samuel Cody
备注：
11 pages, 2 figures, 4 tables. Companion data catalogue available at https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.18665057 v2: renamed "grazing" events to "near-miss"; no changes to results
I present the first systematic catalogue of simultaneous solar transits of both Phobos and Deimos as observed from the surface of Mars. Using the JPL mar099 ephemeris (Brozovic et al. 2025) and SPICE toolkit, I searched the millennium 1600-2600 CE for epochs at which both Martian moons project onto the solar disc at the same instant for at least one surface location. I identify 8565 grazing double transits, 49 partial-overlap double transits (both moons simultaneously on the solar disc, with at least one partially cut off by the limb), and 17 full double transits in which both moons lie wholly within the solar disc at the same moment. All events cluster tightly around the Martian equinoxes (Ls ~ 0 deg or 180 deg) and within +/- 9 deg of the equator, reflecting the near-equatorial orbital inclinations of both moons. I derive a hard theoretical latitude limit of +/- 13.1 deg beyond which simultaneous double transits are geometrically impossible. The next observable partial double transit, excluding less prominent grazing events, is predicted for 2034 April 17. The next full double transit, with both moons wholly inside the solar disc, with a gap between each silhouette and the solar limb, occurs on 2118 November 20. The geometries for both these events were confirmed with JPL Horizons. I provide uncertainty estimates based on the Brozovic et al. covariance model, with predicted position errors growing from ~1 km for near-term events to ~600 km at the catalogue boundaries, and note that the JAXA MMX mission (~2031) will dramatically reduce uncertainties for all post-2030 predictions.
We examine the conditions under which material from the martian moons Phobos and Deimos could reach our planet in the form of meteorites. We find that the necessary ejection speeds from these moons (900 and 600 m/s for Phobos and Deimos respectively) are much smaller than from Mars' surface (5000 m/s). These speeds are below typical impact speeds for asteroids and comets (10-40 km/s) at Mars' orbit, and we conclude that the delivery of meteorites from Phobos and Deimos to the Earth can occur.
Mass-spring model simulations are used to investigate past spin states of a viscoelastic Phobos and Deimos. From an initially tidally locked state, we find crossing of a spin-orbit resonance with Mars or a mean motion resonance with each other does not excite tumbling in Phobos or Deimos. However, once tumbling our simulations show that these moons can remain so for an extended period and during this time their orbital eccentricity can be substantially reduced. We attribute the tendency for simulations of an initially tumbling viscoelastic body to drop into spin-synchronous state at very low e…
We show that a model in which Mars grows near Earth and Venus but is then scattered out of the terrestrial region yields a natural pathway to explain the low masses of the Martian moons Phobos & Deimos. In this scenario, the last giant impact experienced by Mars is followed by an extended period (tens to hundreds of Myr) of close passages by other planetary embryos. These close passages perturb and dynamically heat any system of forming satellites left over by the giant impact and can substantially reduce the mass in the satellite system (sometimes to zero). The close passage of massive pertur…
Although the two moons of Mars, Phobos and Deimos, have long been thought to be captured asteroids, recent observations of their compositions and orbits suggest that they may have formed from debris generated by one or more giant impacts of bodies with ~ 0.01 x target mass. Recent studies have both analytically estimated debris produced by giant impacts on Mars and numerically examined the evolution of circum-Mars debris disks. We perform a numerical study (Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics simulation) of debris retention from giant impacts onto Mars, particularly in relation to a Borealis-scale…
The surface of the Martian moon Phobos exhibits two distinct geologic units, known as the red and blue units. The provenance of these regions is uncertain yet crucial to understanding the origin of the Martian moon and its interaction with the space environment. Here we show that Phobos' orbital eccentricity can cause sufficient grain motion to refresh its surface, suggesting that space weathering is the likely driver of the dichotomy on the moon's surface. In particular, we predict that blue regions are made up of pristine endogenic material that can be uncovered in steep terrain subject to l…
The origin of Phobos and Deimos in a giant impact generated disk is gaining larger attention. Although this scenario has been the subject of many studies, an evaluation of the chemical composition of the Mars' moons in this framework is missing. The chemical composition of Phobos and Deimos is unconstrained. The large uncertainty about the origin of the mid-infrared features, the lack of absorption bands in the visible and near-infrared spectra, and the effects of secondary processes on the moons' surface make the determination of their composition very difficult from remote sensing data. Simu…
We numerically explore the possibility that the large orbital inclination of the martian satellite Deimos originated in an orbital resonance with an ancient inner satellite of Mars more massive than Phobos. We find that Deimos's inclination can be reliably generated by outward evolution of a martian satellite that is about 20 times more massive than Phobos through the 3:1 mean-motion resonance with Deimos at 3.3 Mars radii. This outward migration, in the opposite direction from tidal evolution within the synchronous radius, requires interaction with a past massive ring of Mars. Our results the…
The origin and evolution of Martian moons have been intensively debated in recent years. It is proposed that Phobos and Deimos may originate directly from a splitting of an ancestral moon orbiting at around the Martian synchronous orbit. At this hypothetical splitting, the apocenter of the inner moon (presumed as Phobos) and the pericenter of the outer moon (presumed as Deimos) are reported to coincide, in that, their semi-major axes reside inside and outside the Martian synchronous orbit with non-zero eccentricities, respectively. However, the successive orbital evolution of the two moons is …
Recent works have shown that Martian moons Phobos and Deimos may have accreted within a giant impact-generated disk whose composition is about an equal mixture of Martian material and impactor material. Just after the giant impact, the Martian surface is heated up to $\sim3000-6000$ K and the building blocks of moons, including volatile-rich vapor, are heated up to $\sim2000$ K. In this paper, we investigate the volatile loss from the building blocks of Phobos and Deimos by hydrodynamic escape of vapor and radiation pressure on condensed particles. We show that a non-negligible amount of volat…
Accurate positional measurements of planets and satellites are used to improve our knowledge of their dynamics and to infer the accuracy of planet and satellite ephemerides. In the framework of the FP7 ESPaCE project, we provide the positions of Mars, Phobos, and Deimos taken with the U.S. Naval Observatory 26-inch refractor during the 1971 opposition of the planet. These plates were measured with the digitizer of the Royal Observatory of Belgium and reduced through an optimal process that includes image, instrumental, and spherical corrections to provide the most accurate data. We compared th…
Phobos and Deimos are the two small moons of Mars. Recent works have shown that they can accrete within an impact-generated disk. However, the detailed structure and initial thermodynamic properties of the disk are poorly understood. In this paper, we perform high-resolution SPH simulations of the Martian moon-forming giant impact that can also form the Borealis basin. This giant impact heats up the disk material (around $\sim 2000$ K in temperature) with an entropy increase of $\sim 1500$ J K$^{-1}$ kg$^{-1}$. Thus, the disk material should be mostly molten, though a tiny fraction of disk mat…
The Martian Moons Exploration (MMX) spacecraft is a JAXA mission to Mars and its moons Phobos and Deimos. MMX will carry the Circum-Martian Dust Monitor (CMDM) which is a newly developed light-weight ($\mathrm{650\,g}$) large area ($\mathrm{1\,m^2}$) dust impact detector. Cometary meteoroid streams (also referred to as trails) exist along the orbits of comets, forming fine structures of the interplanetary dust cloud. The streams consist predominantly of the largest cometary particles (with sizes of approximately $\mathrm{100\,μm}$ to 1~cm) which are ejected at low speeds and remain very close …
It is expected since the early 1970s that tenuous dust rings are formed by grains ejected from the Martian moons Phobos and Deimos by impacts of hypervelocity interplanetary projectiles. In this paper, we perform direct numerical integrations of a large number of dust particles originating from Phobos and Deimos. In the numerical simulations, the most relevant forces acting on dust are included: Martian gravity with spherical harmonics up to 5th degree and 5th order, gravitational perturbations from the Sun, Phobos, and Deimos, solar radiation pressure, as well as the Poynting-Robertson drag. …
Phobos and Deimos are the two small Martian moons, orbiting almost on the equatorial plane of Mars. Recent works have shown that they can accrete within an impact-generated inner dense and outer light disk, and that the same impact potentially forms the Borealis basin, a large northern hemisphere basin on the current Mars. However, there is no a priori reason for the impact to take place close to the north pole (Borealis present location) nor to generate a debris disk in the equatorial plane of Mars (in which Phobos and Deimos orbit). In this paper, we investigate these remaining issues on the…
Potential microbial contamination of Martian moons, Phobos and Deimos, which can be brought about by transportation of Mars ejecta produced by meteoroid impacts on the Martian surface, has been comprehensively assessed in a statistical approach, based on the most probable history of recent major gigantic meteoroid collisions on the Martian surface. This article is the first part of our study to assess potential microbial density in Mars ejecta departing from the Martian atmosphere, as a source of the second part where statistical analysis of microbial contamination probability is conducted. Po…
This paper presents a case study of microbe transportation in the Mars-satellites system. We examined the spatial distribution of potential impact-transported microbes on the Martian moons using impact physics by following a companion study (Fujita et al.). We used sterilization data from the precede studies. We considered that the microbes came mainly from the Zunil crater on Mars. We found that 70-80% of the microbes are likely to be dispersed all over the moon surface and are rapidly sterilized due to radiation except for those microbes within a thick ejecta deposit produced by meteoroids. …
The Mars Express (MEX) mission has been successfully operated around Mars since 2004. Among many results, MEX has provided some of the most accurate astrometric data of the two Mars moons, Phobos and Deimos. In this work we present new ephemerides of Mars' moons benefitting from all previously published astrometric data to the most recent MEX SRC data. All in all, observations from 1877 until 2018 and including spacecraft measurements from Mariner 9 to MEX were included. Assuming a homogeneous interior, we fitted Phobos' forced libration amplitude simultaneously with the Martian tidal k2/Q rat…
Throughout the history of the solar system, Mars has experienced continuous asteroidal impacts. These impacts have produced impact-generated Mars ejecta, and a fraction of this debris is delivered to Earth as Martian meteorites. Another fraction of the ejecta is delivered to the moons of Mars, Phobos and Deimos. Here, we studied the amount and condition of recent delivery of impact ejecta from Mars to its moons. Using state-of-the-art numerical approaches, we report, for the first time, that materials delivered from Mars to its moons are physically and chemically different from the Martian met…
The dynamical surface of Phobos: a morphodynamic atlas
Centro de Astrobiología CSIC-INTA（西班牙国家航空航天技术研究所天体生物学中心）；Universidad Carlos III de Madrid（马德里卡洛斯三世大学）；Université Paris Cité, Institut de Physique du Globe de Paris, CNRS（巴黎 Cité 大学、巴黎地球物理研究所、法国国家科学研究中心）
The origin of Phobos and Deimos is still an open question. Currently, none of the three proposed scenarios for their origin (intact capture of two distinct outer solar system small bodies, co-accretion with Mars, and accretion within an impact-generated disk) is able to reconcile their orbital and physical properties. Here, we investigate the expected mineralogical composition and size of the grains from which the moons once accreted assuming they formed within an impact-generated accretion disk. A comparison of our results with the present day spectral properties of the moons allows us to con…
Almost all the planets of our solar system have moons. Each planetary system has however unique characteristics. The Martian system has not one single big moon like the Earth, not tens of moons of various sizes like for the giant planets, but two small moons: Phobos and Deimos. How did form such a system? This question is still being investigated on the basis of the Earth-based and space-borne observations of the Martian moons and of the more modern theories proposed to account for the formation of other moon systems. The most recent scenario of formation of the Martian moons relies on a giant…
