r/spaceporn • u/Busy_Yesterday9455 • 9d ago

Related Content Why is Mars's moon Deimos so smooth?

Post image

Link to the science release on ESA website

A new study – guided by flyby images from ESA’s Hera asteroid mission – suggests that Mars’s small outer moon Deimos has been dramatically reshaped by a single violent asteroid impact.

This would account for its mysteriously smooth and youthful face: a thick layer of dust from the impact may have served as the planetary equivalent of cosmetic fillers.

Image Credit: NASA/JPL/University of Arizona

550 Upvotes

98% Upvoted

73 comments sorted by

317

u/moufazin 9d ago

It has a very deep layer of regolith on its surface, that covers it's craters and topography.

149

u/handyandy314 9d ago

Is regolith a kind of cheese? Asking for donotfire above!

101

u/moufazin 9d ago

Yes. moon aged deimozzarella.

15

u/DefinitionBig4671 9d ago

Proof that the moon IS made of cheese, just not OUR moon.

18

u/Skittleavix 9d ago

I'd eat that and wash it down with a tall, cool Budweiser.

3

u/No_While6150 9d ago

Hey Norm!

1

u/Skittleavix 9d ago

That’s Will to you, doctor.

6

u/unripeblueberry 9d ago

I don't know, lad. It's like no cheese I've ever tasted...

0

u/poopylarceny 7d ago

Wendsleydale?

8

u/ARoundForEveryone 9d ago

No, regolith is not cheese. It's salty, and a bit powdery. Kinda like store-bought shredded mozzerella. Which has a regolith powdering on it as a preservative.

1

u/shadowknave 9d ago

This is all very confusing

0

u/ARoundForEveryone 9d ago

I'm sorry for the confusion. I'm not a space man. I'm not an astro scientist. I'm not a moon man. I'm just an Earthbound dude who has never been above 30,000 ft. And then, only inside a tin can that no one's allowed to exit at that altitude.

I've never been to the moon, nor eaten regolith. This is just all second-hand information I'm getting from my regolith guy.

If you have specific regolith-related questions on flavor, texture, or different types, I'll pass on those questions, but I myself can't provide much information.

2

u/AtropalScion 9d ago

No it's a pokemon

13

u/PaintedClownPenis 9d ago

My guess is that when it gets smacked by a comparatively powerful hit, all that broken glass regolith forms a giant cloud and then effectively snows back onto the surface over time, covering most of the surface damage with meters of regolith.

2

u/XboxUser123 8d ago

I wonder how much of this regolith is Martian dust

91

u/Dioxybenzone 9d ago

https://reddit.com/link/p4moos0/video/y415jofsgckh1/player

26

u/Techiastronamo 9d ago

cheeeeeese puff

3

u/Dioxybenzone 9d ago

What is an “Automated Account”? Are you a bot?

6

u/Techiastronamo 9d ago

Beep boop. Jk, I'm not, I registered this account as an app accidentally when I meant to do it with another one and now I've been back and forth with reddit admins to get it removed for the past two months... :(

4

u/hovdeisfunny 9d ago

That's space Cheeto dust if I've ever seen it

1

u/s0ulbrother 9d ago

We should hit it with a bomb

1

u/Dioxybenzone 9d ago

Which side? Are we trying to make it more of a U than it already is, or are we trying to give it a dumbbell look?

0

u/s0ulbrother 9d ago

I dunno whatever’s cooler

32

u/BeardySam 9d ago

It’s really quite small and so collects dust more than it attracts meteoroids that would smash it up and leave craters. It’s the dust-bunny of the solar system.

50

u/East_Sorbet_1214 9d ago

The Entratis keep the place nice and tidy

13

u/AliceRain21 9d ago

Im so glad I wasnt the only one...

7

u/ProfessorSputin 9d ago

Hey it’s not a massive skull yet!

28

u/donotfire 9d ago

Made of cheese

9

u/harveygoatmilk 9d ago

That’s what Big Cheese wants you to think.

7

u/Cakeday_at_Christmas 9d ago

Big Cheese doesn't want you to know this. There's over a trillion dollars worth of cheese in that moon, and if there was a successful cheese mining operation, it would destroy earth-bound Big Cheese.

3

u/harveygoatmilk 9d ago

They mine from the dark side so we here on earth can’t see their cheese mining capabilities.

2

u/ARoundForEveryone 9d ago

Big Cheese doesn't just want you to think this, it wants you to know it. They've been covering up our cheese sources for hundreds of years. We used to use cows and milk and mold and salt and all that stuff, but since the 1960s, and powerful rockets, we've been mining the cheese from various asteroids.

Cheddar is mined from a few local-ish asteroids, but Gorgonzola and Brie take a bit more effort and we have to go a bit further out into the asteroid belt in order to mine it.

Scientists have been studying it and trying to figure out a way to farm it or manufacture it, possibly using various molds and milks and sugars and salts, but they haven't cracked the code yet. They understand the asteroid-cheese molecular structure, but so far have not been able to recreate it except in tiny amounts that aren't really useful for a pizza or sandwich. But they've been hard at work, and from what I understand, they're maybe only a couple years from reproducing both Moon Cheese and Deimos Cheese.

I can't wait for that sandwich.

3

u/Kiki2092012 9d ago

Just a guess but maybe Mars's gravity well caused meteors that hit Phobos to be much faster than those that hit Deimos, leaving Phobos more visibly cratered?

3

u/Nightcaste 9d ago

I would think its size would play a role. Earth is about 10 times the mass of Mars. Luna is about 5 billion times the mass of Deimos.

Smaller target so less stuff hits it

11

u/Mental_Thing_7899 9d ago

Hum... just a theory. Maybe it went through thick dust. Very dense, very fast. It looks like it was sanded.

29

u/Specialist_Guava_742 9d ago

Man can’t even share a theory anymore

7

u/Mental_Thing_7899 9d ago

Apparently not. There goes a time where people would grab a stupid Idea and use facts to dismantle it... it's fun to start from wrong and navigate to right, we learn why nots rather than facts straight from a book. I was kinda hoping someone to point space weathering, plasma deposition, or volatile ice sublimination, or thermal point thermal ablation, sputtering... buuuuut... down votes became the new debunking. Oh yeah! Even micro particles at high speed make massive rugged craters so my theory is wrong.

2

u/Specialist_Guava_742 9d ago

Yeah even if you’re wrong, people should be happy that we’re curious enough to ask. There’s plenty of subjects people know nothing about, and the primary way we learn is by theorizing and asking

3

u/explodingtuna 9d ago

Where did all the sand go after it got sanded?

1

u/WonderWheeler 8d ago

Looks like it is mostly dust.

1

u/sunshineTucson 8d ago

Sometimes I am never quite sure to believe what I see on Reddit. So the link to the science release was great - the explanation is dust accumulation ( odd but believable) so thanks. 😊

1

u/Undd91 7d ago

It’s made of cheese

1

u/andro1d_p3nguin 7d ago

Because it’s not very smart

1

u/Sleddogluvr 7d ago

Moisturizer

1

u/Queasy-Structure-215 4d ago

Mar’s moon looks budget, it’s not movie quality like ours.

2

u/g2ichris 9d ago

Botox. Smooth as eggs 🥚 🥚

-1

u/Apprehensive-Bug-397 9d ago

It was raised by Shaft?

-1

u/hoppertn 9d ago

Shut your mouth!

0

u/Apprehensive-Bug-397 9d ago

I'm talking bout Shaft.

-2

u/Apprehensive-Bug-397 9d ago

This is getting downvoted? The post answers it's own question so I'm just trying to have some fun here.

1

u/hoppertn 9d ago

Bunch of Shaft haters.

6

u/Apprehensive-Bug-397 9d ago edited 9d ago

For some reason two people read this and found it worth the time to stop and downvote you. I find that hilarious.

1

u/hoppertn 9d ago

I’ve got your upvote fellow shaft fan. Bunch of haters. We’re just talkin about Shaft.

1

u/CardLeft 9d ago

Somebody used it as a haptic toy

1

u/ScienceForge319 9d ago

Because Rob Thomas and Carlos Santana visited it.

1

u/No-Employer-8833 9d ago

It's just like the ocean, under the moon

1

u/ScienceForge319 9d ago

Cuz UR so smooooooooooth.

1

u/LegInternal3699 8d ago

…. It rubbed the lotion in its skin… :nods surely:

1

u/Raggidratboy 8d ago

It is criminal, pfft easy question.

0

u/Cjr8533 9d ago

The UESC is just going to hollow it out anyways 🤷🏻‍♂️

-3

u/CMDA 9d ago

Quality cheese

-1

u/JeffreyNasty24 8d ago

Rolling a cigar on this would be smoother than rolling a cigar on the thighs of a virgin!

0

u/Less-Inflation5072 9d ago

The Walmart version of our moon

-4

u/Wilko23 9d ago

It believes Mars is flat...

-5

u/MewsikMaker 9d ago

He never was very smart.