Mars may once have had a much larger moon

 

The Gale crater on Mars. Image courtesy of ZUMA Press, Inc./Alamy

 Joel Kontinen

There are two small moons in orbit around Mars today, but both may be remnants of a much larger moon that had enough of a gravitational pull to drive tides in the Red Planet's lost lakes and seas.

A bigger moon for Mars. that is the result of water that supposedly sprang from it as the smaller moons that encircle they could not produce so much water.  

This is the result of believing in millions of years as it may given time for the moon to be formed.

A Mars crater may have once contained water that sloshed back and forth as a tide came and went. If that is true, it follows that Mars must have had a moon that was massive enough to exert a gravitational pull on the planet’s seas sufficient enough to create tides. Neither of the two moons it currently possesses are big enought for the job.

Suniti Karunatillake at Louisiana State University and his colleagues have found that traces of tidal activity seem to be preserved in thin layers within sedimentary rocks in Gale crater

Source:

Bas den Hond 2025 Mars may once have had a much larger moon | New Scientist 12 December