Revolutionary Discovery Sheds Light on Red Planet’s Mysterious Orbital Evolution

Mars Moons Phobos and Deimos Are Not Captured Asteroids, Says Paper

A new paper accepted for publication by The Planetary Science Journal has confirmed that neither Phobos nor Deimos, the two small moons of Mars, were gravitationally captured by the Red Planet. Instead, these findings suggest that they may have formed from a debris disk left over from a massive impact in the early days of our solar system.

Phobos and Deimos orbit Mars at distances ranging from 23,463 kilometers for Deimos to just 3,976 kilometers for Phobos. The authors of the paper used advanced simulations to study the gravitational dynamics of the system and ruled out the possibility that they were captured asteroids.

Source: https://www.forbes.com/sites/brucedorminey/2025/04/01/mars-moons-phobos-and-deimos-are-not-captured-asteroids-says-paper/