Potato Blocking The Sun: NASA’s Perseverance Rover Captures Mars’ Moon Phobos

17th Oct 2024
Potato Blocking The Sun: NASA’s Perseverance Rover Captures Mars’ Moon Phobos

On 30 September, NASA’s Perseverance rover photographed the solar eclipse from Mars with its Left Mastcam-Z camera. Stunning photos showcase the Mars’ moon Phobos partially obscuring the sun. In the series of images, Phobos’s shape is clearly visible and resembles a lumpy potato.

Perseverance Captures Phobos – Mars’ Small Moon

Phobos, the larger of Mars’s two small moons, is not round like our Moon or many other moons in the solar system; instead, it has an irregular shape, similar to an asteroid.

Phobos, the larger of Mars' two moons
Phobos, the larger of Mars’ two moons. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona

Phobos measures about 17 miles by 14 miles by 11 miles (27 by 22 by 18 kilometres) and orbits Mars very closely, at just 3,700 miles (6,000 km). In contrast, our Moon orbits Earth at an average distance of 238,855 miles (384,400 km). Additionally, Phobos moves quickly, completing three orbits around Mars in just one day.

Why Is Mars’ Moon Phobos Potato-Shaped?

Phobos begins crossing the solar disk during the eclipse
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU

While Phobos might look like an asteroid, with its irregular shape that resembles a potato, it likely isn’t one. The origin of Phobos is still one of the moon’s biggest mysteries.

 Some scientists have ruled out Phobos as a captured asteroid for one main reason — its orbit around Mars is nearly perfect. If Mars’ gravitational pull had snagged a passing asteroid, the abducted object likely would have an irregular orbit.

Current theories about how Phobos and its companion moon, Deimos, came to suggest that they were created through a process of accretion. This may have involved leftover material from the formation of Mars or resulted from a massive collision between Mars and another celestial body.

Previous Rovers Capture Phobos Transits

Phobos transits the sun in 2019
Phobos transits the Sun’s disk, as seen by NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity on 26 March, 2019. Credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / MSSS.

In fact, Perseverance is not the first rover to capture images of “Mars eclipse” with Phobos obscuring the sun. NASA’s twin rovers, Spirit and Opportunity, observed Mars moon Phobos transiting the sun in 2004, and Curiosity recorded the first video of such an event in 2019.

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