What would happen if Mars was hit by a 1.07E16 kg carbonaceous chondrite meteorite (phobos). Would the rocks yust rain down considering that they're already fragmented when phobos reached it's roche limit or would they burn up releasing their weight in oxygen carbon dioxide and water?
It would not burn up considering there is next to no atmosphere on mars. It would crash into the planet leaving a large crater.. or worse. Do you know how the moon was created ?
They look like captured asteroids but they might as well be formed in a similar way like our moon when a hughe asteroid struck the surface and there wasn't enough material ejected to form a single large moon like on earth it would explain the orbits. Take in mind that phobos will still be circling mars when it reaches his roche limit so what will actually come down won't be a single moon but a ring like saturn has.
Naturally in 30 to 80 million (earth) years, altough I seriosly doubt it will exists for a other 300 years due to "a denser atmosphere" not that I believe that mars would be terraformed anytime soon, but I can imagen that in a 100 year or so people will be able to change parts per million in the martian atmosphere and when that results in greenhouse gasses 100 thousands time stronger then Co2 then it could create a denser (still poisoness) atmosphere causing more drag on the moon http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phobos_%28moon%29
It appears that right now if we assume that man lands on Mars (if we're lucky) in the next 50 years, It would take quite a few years (maybe a 100) and a lot of men/women and a lot of elephants (Methane gas) to change the current martian atmosphere enough to show any noticable effect on Phobos. Of course a big herd of hungry mammoths and mastodons might be able to do it a shorter period of time.
The previous paper states two parts per million to heat the surface enough... this is a large volume that is difficult to achieve. This one only asks for 240 parts per billion for a 70°K increase I can only wander what gasses will become avaible in the (near) future. Annyway current co2 levels on earth are 383 parts per million and could rice to 541 to 970 ppm by the year 2100, so thats 158ppm in a centuary without even trying, so doing a 100 times less might not be that impossible and might not even be needed if better gas combinations that are more potent are found.
Let's split the difference and say 'Naturally' in 55 million years. Will that be Sulphur, Methane or Carbon Monoxide we have to worry about? How about just eating beans and chile on the first manned martian bases? Will that do it? If so, we should start to see a difference in the gasses of the martian atmosphere in about 50 years after the first man landings on Mars. Do ya agree with me on that hypothesis?
