Phobos, one of Mars's two moons, will disintegrate some 20 million to 40 million years from now, and its particles will form the only planetary ring in the inner Solar System.
Benjamin Black and Tushar Mittal of the University of California, Berkeley, made these predictions by analysing tidal and other forces that are currently pulling Phobos (pictured) towards Mars. Using a geological model of how rock holds together, they calculated that the moon would rip apart before it smashed into the planet. The resulting ring would be stable for 1 million to 100 million years, they say.
Nature Geosci. http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/ngeo2583 (2015)
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Martian moon will break apart. Nature 527, 413 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1038/527413e
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/527413e
