Meteorites from Phobos and Deimos at Earth?

P. Wiegert, M. Galiazzo
(Submitted on 5 May 2017)

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.

Comments:    11 pages, 2 figures, accepted by Planetary and Space Science
Subjects:    Earth and Planetary Astrophysics (astro-ph.EP)
Cite as:    arXiv:1705.02260 [astro-ph.EP]
     (or arXiv:1705.02260v1 [astro-ph.EP] for this version)
Submission history
From: Paul A. Wiegert 
[v1] Fri, 5 May 2017 15:22:22 GMT (158kb)
https://arxiv.org/abs/1705.02260