5 ms·
Anything as big as the Moon is going to be spherical; if Mars' moons were large enough to totally eclipse the Sun, I expect they would be spherical too.
by azernik 6y ago
Anything as big as the Moon is going to be spherical; if Mars' moons were large enough to totally eclipse the Sun, I expect they would be spherical too.
- elihu 6y agoIf you get far enough away from the sun you could potentially see a total eclipse with a lumpy moon. Or if the moon has a very low orbit. For Mars, Phobos is probably about as close to an eclipse-with-a-lumpy-moon as you could reasonably expect to get. I think it's not that far above the Roche limit where it would fall apart and turn into a ring, and if it were bigger it would tend to be less lumpy. Potentially you could stretch it into a pancake-shape which would better occlude the sun by spinning it, but I suppose that would also make it more likely to fall apart and turn into a ring.