PhD student Jonathan Roberts says the technology works by creating authentication schemes based on atomic-scale imperfections in nano-scale structures, which they call Quantum ID, or Q-ID for short. He says each nanostructure they’ve created has a unique identity and is nearly impossible to copy or clone.

Mars’ closest moon moves closer to Mars by about six feet every hundred years, and as Phobos gets closer to the planet’s surface, the gravitational pull increases. Soon these stresses will be too much for Phobos to bear, and it’s likely that the moon will break up completely at some point.