Heres why I want to go.
Posted on 07/29/2003 8:56:47 AM PDT by RightWhale
Heres why I want to go.
Look again. One side is blasted off. Just like earth. Where is the missing crust?
This discription is within 20% accurate
It's not within 20% accurate. The orbital radii of the moons are at 9378 km and 23459, or about 1.4 and 3.5 diameters.
Still, it is remarkable.
LOL! Good one!
You're a marine, one of Earth's toughest, hardened in combat and trained for action. Three years ago you assaulted a superior officer for ordering his soldiers to fire upon civilians. He and his body cast were shipped to Pearl Harbor, while you were transferred to Mars, home of the Union Aerospace Corporation. The UAC is a multi-planetary conglomerate with radioactive waste facilities on Mars and its two moons, Phobos and Deimos. With no action for fifty million miles, your day consisted of suckin' dust and watchin' restricted flicks in the rec room.
For the last four years the military, UAC's biggest supplier, has used the remote facilities on Phobos and Deimos to conduct various secret projects, including research on inter-dimensional space travel. So far they have been able to open gateways between Phobos and Deimos, throwing a few gadgets into one and watching them come out the other. Recently however, the Gateways have grown dangerously unstable. Military "volunteers" entering them have either disappeared or been stricken with a strange form of insanity-babbling vulgarities, bludgeoning anything that breathes, and finally suffering and untimely death of full body explosion. Matching heads with torsos to send home to the folks became a full-time job. Latest military reports state that the research is suffering a small set-back, but everything is under control.
A few hours ago, Mars received a garbled message from Phobos. "We require immediate military support. Something fraggin' evil is coming out of the Gateways! Computer systems have gone berserk!" The rest was incoherent. Soon Afterwards, Deimos simply vanished from the sky. Since then, attempts to establish contact with either moon have been unsuccessful. You and your buddies, the only combat troop for fifty million miles were sent up pronto to Phobos. You were ordered to secure the perimeter of the base while the rest of the team went inside. For several hours, your radio picked up the sounds of combat: guns firing, men yelling orders, screams, bones cracking, then finally, silence. Seems your buddies are dead. It's Up To You Things aren't looking too good.
You'll never navigate off the planet on your own. Plus, all the heavy weapons have been taken by the assault team leaving you with only a pistol. If only you could get your hands around a plasma rifle or even a shotgun you could take a few down on your way out. Whatever killed your buddies deserves a couple of pellets in the forehead. Securing your helmet, you exit the landing pod. Hopefully you can find more substantial fire power somewhere within the station. As you walk through the main entrance of the base, you hear animal like growls echoing throughout the distant corridors. They know your here. There's no turning back now.
This picture seems to show plastering though: 
Plus topographical studies show that the plastered side is sitting on top of the exposed unplastered side.
Let me rephrase that. Topographical studies (or studies of the crust) show that the loose pastered debris is sitting on top of a former surface that is visible on the unplastered side.
When they taught in the 50s the story of where the moon came from, they had diagrams showing the moon material being ripped from one side of the earth's crust presumably where the Pacific Basin is today. Something similar could have happened to Mars, but there is of course nothing left of this material except the two small pieces Phobos and Deimos, if they came from that event and aren't just some kind of captured asteroids. There is no reason to expect that a captured asteroid would settle into a circular orbit except that is what happens apparently around Jupiter and Saturn. What could circularize such orbits when there are only a couple of small moons?
The faster something travels the more speed it loses when it collects space dust, meteors, etc., perhaps. If there was a giant disentegration of a large planet, then all the extra dust and debris in the inner solar system would serve as a drag on any object in an elliptical orbit because objects in an elliptical orbits would have portions of their orbits where they are going faster than the dust and objects their colliding with before gravitational attraction sped up the dust and debris right before impact. It would be more of a drag when the object is going fast and less of a drag or perhaps even a push when the object is going slow in it's various positions of it's elliptical orbit. Over time, that would circularize the orbit, I would think, especially on a relatively small planet like Mars, or on a small moon like Phobos. As the inner solar system has been cleaned up over time, this drag is less apparent now but it could've been a lot greater right after the event. Maybe Mars hasn't collected enough debris and dust to circularize it's orbit, I don't know. From what I understand Mars orbit isn't all that stable. It could mean it hasn't been where it's at for very long.
Are you kidding me? You'd have to have 'nads to try a stunt like that. Those guys usually took a giant-size chunk outta my face before I could fire up the 'saw. I'd rather shove both barrels of my shotgun into its mouth and pull the trigger. Or whip out the plasma rifle and liquify its eyeball.
I've uttered more naughty words than I can count stalking those things late at night. Of course, nothing beat the feeling of hearing the blood-curdling roar of a Pinkie behind you, whipping around, then blowing him away.
The same effect that causes comets to break up as they pass Jupiter could lift the crust from a planet to form a moon, without a direct impact between the two bodies.
Of course, if the bodies pass too close, the less massive one becomes an asteroid belt.
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