Mars is destroying its moon: NASA says 'stretch marks' show Phobos is doomed

Mars is slowly killing its largest moon, NASA has revealed.

Phobos is being gradually being tugged towards the Red Planet, a process which will eventually destroy it.

Space scientists have identified distinctive " stretch mark " grooves which show the moon is facing a grim future.

“We think that Phobos has already started to fail, and the first sign of this failure is the production of these grooves,” said Terry Hurford of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Centre.

Phobos is closer to its host planet than any other moon in the solar system, orbiting at a distance of just 3,700 miles.

It is being drawn towards Mars at a rate of two metres every hundred years, indicating it will probably be totally destroyed within 30 to 50 million years.

The moon was once thought to be solid, but NASA now believes it is little more than a hard surface covering "a rubble pile, barely holding together".

This means gravity from Mars can easily tug and push at Phobos, deforming its shape.

This process is believed to have created the distinctive stretch marks.

Eventually, the surface will crack under the strain and Phobos will be no more.

The same process could be happening to whole planets in other solar systems, NASA added.

“We can’t image those distant planets to see what’s going on, but this work can help us understand those systems, because any kind of planet falling into its host star could get torn apart in the same way,” said Hurford.