NASA Releases Video of Solar Eclipse on Mars Captured by Perseverance Rover

New images from NASA Perseverance rover show one of Mars’ moons eclipsing the Sun, creating an eye in Mars’ sky. A video of this eclipse was posted on the JPLraw YouTube page and shared by NASA.

Details on the solar eclipse on Mars

Mars has two moons, named Phobos (named after the Greek god of fear) and Deimos (named after the god’s twin brother), respectively.

The moon captured during this eclipse is Phobos, the larger of the two moons. It was captured by the NASA Perseverance rover’s Mastcam-Z on 30th September, which is also the 1,285th Martian day of Perseverance’s mission.

Images taken by the rover reveal the moon passing directly between the Sun and a point on the surface of Mars. While the moon didn’t completely block the Sun due to its small size, it covered a large part of the Sun’s disc.

Phobos’ motion across the surface of the sun casts the moon’s shadow on Mars. This shadow gradually moved across the planet’s surface as the moon moved across the sun like a Pupil would an Iris.

Since Phobos’ orbit is almost perfectly in line with Mars’ equator, and it isn’t far from the planet’s surface, its orbits are fast. NASA says that these orbits take 7.6 hours to complete, so eclipses like the one in consideration only last about 30 seconds.

Solar eclipses on Mars give a tragic insight into the planet

On 25th January 2004, the NASA Opportunity mission landed on Mars. During this mission images of solar eclipses were taken. On 4th March 2004 and 7th March 2004, Deimos and Phobos were respectively photographed crossing the Sun’s surface.

Following this, the NASA Curiosity rover landed on Mars on 6th August 2012. On 17th March 2019, Curiosity recorded a video of Deimos crossing the sun’s surface.In a further recording on 26th March 2019, Phobos also crossed the Sun’s surface.

The NASA Perseverance rover has also captured several solar eclipses caused by Phobos since landing on Mars in 2021.

By comparing the data available, scientists identified that Phobos is gradually getting closer to the surface of Mars. From their calculations, scientists estimate that in about 50 million years, Mars’ moon Phobos will collide with the planet.