NASA’s Mars rover Perseverance has returned a surprising series of images of the sun’s moon, Phobos.
From Jezero Crater on Mars, the rovers SkyCam and Mastcam took more than 65 images of the event on February 8, one per second, to ensure they captured the brief event.
The image shows the tiny potato-shaped moon Phobos moving across the sun in 35 seconds. That’s less than two months until the Earth’s total solar eclipse, which will be visible across North America.
Partial stages can be seen across the continent, but totality can only be experienced within its 115-mile-wide path. Visual observation of the sun’s corona during a few minutes of darkness during the day.
partial solar eclipse
Last week’s solar eclipse on Mars is best described as a partial or annular solar eclipse, with Phobos, at about 11.5 kilometers in diameter, too small to block out all of the Sun.
This is true for all solar eclipses seen from Mars, as Phobos is the largest of its two moons (the other being Deimos). Phobos orbits Mars three times a day, making it very close to Mars at only 3,700 miles (6,000 kilometers) away. NASA.
In 2004, the Spirit and Opportunity rovers First time-lapse photo of Phobos during a solar eclipse. NASA’s curiosity rover I did that too.
Perseverance landed on Mars on February 18, 2021, and has been searching for signs of ancient microbial life ever since. On December 12th, Mars will celebrate its 1,000th day (sol), and the spacecraft will be exploring an area called the Beehive Geyser.
potato-shaped moon
Phobos is approaching Mars and is predicted to collide with Mars within about 50 million years. Therefore, at some point, its apparent size becomes large enough to completely cover the Sun. Technically, a total solar eclipse from Mars would be possible, but because Phobos is shaped like a potato, a complete total solar eclipse will never occur.
For a total solar eclipse, the moon must be reasonably round and, in some cases, the same apparent size as the sun. This is only true from Earth. On Earth, the Moon is about 400 times smaller than the Sun, but close to 400 times smaller than the Sun.
The path of totality on April 8, 2024.
Michael Zeiler/GreatAmericanEclipse.com
path of wholeness
On April 8, the Moon will be so close to Earth that it will appear 5.6% larger than the Sun, casting a shadow that will move across Earth at about 1,500 miles per hour. This path to totalization covers five Mexican states (Sinaloa, Nayarit, Durango, Coahuila, Chihuahua) and 15 US states (Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Missouri, Illinois, Kentucky, Tennessee, Michigan, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York, Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine) and seven Canadian provinces (Ontario, Quebec, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, Nova Scotia, and Newfoundland).
Totality travels across North America in 100 minutes across six time zones, and anyone below it experiences up to 4 minutes and 28 seconds of totality. Cities in the pass include Mazatlan, Torreon, San Antonio, Austin, Dallas, Forth Worth, Little Rock, Indianapolis, Cleveland, Buffalo, Rochester, Syracuse, and Montreal.
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