“Phobos is on a collision course with Mars, hurtling towards the planet at a rate of six feet (1.8 meters) every hundred years. In the next 50 million years, it will either crash into Mars or break up into a ring,” reveals NASA’s page on the Martian moon.
“Scientists have confirmed that Phobos is doomed,” states NASA in a recent statement discussing the eclipse captured by Perseverance. “The moon is gradually approaching the Martian surface and is destined to collide with the planet in tens of millions of years. However, eclipse observations from the surface of Mars over the past two decades have provided valuable insights into Phobos’ slow death spiral.”
Our own Moon, seemingly fed up with our antics, is slowly drifting away from us at a rate of about 3.78 centimeters (1.5 inches) per year. This means that in the future, our distant descendants (if they still exist) will no longer witness a total solar eclipse. From our perspective, the Moon will appear too small to completely cover the Sun.
“Over time, the number and frequency of total solar eclipses will decrease,” predicts lunar scientist Richard Vondrak from NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center. “Approximately 600 million years from now, Earth will witness the beauty and drama of a total solar eclipse for the final time.”
The fact that our Moon currently perfectly eclipses the Sun is a fortunate coincidence. The Sun and the Moon appear to be the same size in the sky because the Sun is about 400 times larger in diameter and 400 times farther away from Earth than the Moon. However, 4 million years ago, before the Moon settled into its current orbit, it would have appeared about three times larger in the sky.
Fortunately, depending on your perspective, the Sun will eventually become a Red Giant and engulf the Earth before we are completely separated from the Moon’s influence. We will face our fate together.
