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Rise and fall of the Martian moons

The two small satellites of Mars are thought to have accreted from a debris disk formed in a giant impact. Simulations suggest the moons were shepherded into formation by the dynamical influence of one or more short-lived massive inner moons.

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Figure 1: Schematic of the Mars system.

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Correspondence to Erik Asphaug.

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Asphaug, E. Rise and fall of the Martian moons. Nature Geosci 9, 568–569 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1038/ngeo2755

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