It’s a bird! It’s a plane! No, it’s Phobos, Mars’ “potato-shaped” moon, crossing the face of the Sun!
NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover zoomed in on a Phobos solar eclipse and shared the video on its Twitter account on April 20. In it, you can spot a hunk of something pass over the Sun, as seen through Perseverance’s Mastcam-Z camera on Mars.
“This detailed video can help scientists on my team better understand the Martian moon’s orbit and how its gravity affects the interior of Mars, including its crust & mantle,” the rover tweeted. (Yep, NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover tweets in first person, giving us all yet another reason to watch WALL-E and cry.)
The video was originally captured on April 2, nearly 400 days into Perserverance’s mission. The eclipse lasted a little over 40 seconds, which is far shorter than the typical solar eclipse we see here on Earth — those usually last about seven and a half minutes. It’s also different from a solar eclipse we’re used to seeing because Phobos doesn’t completely cover up the Sun; instead, it just passes through. That’s because, according to NASA, Phobos is about 157 times smaller than Earth’s Moon. And Mars’ other moon, Deimos, is even smaller than that.
“I knew it was going to be good, but I didn’t expect it to be this amazing,” Rachel Hows, one of the Mastcam-Z team members who operates the camera, said in a press release. “It feels like a birthday or holiday when [the images] arrive. You know what’s coming, but there is still an element of surprise when you get to see the final product.”
This isn’t the first time we’ve seen Phobos cross over the sun. In 2004, NASA rovers Spirit and Opportunity took the first photos of a Phobos solar eclipse, and Curiosity took one, too. But Perseverance captured the best quality video of a Phobos solar eclipse. You can even see color in this video, unlike past captures of the eclipse, which lets us see sunspots and ridges and bumps on the moon.
It’s a beauty for sure, but Phobos is here for a good time, not a long time. As the moon gets closer to the Martian surface, it’s doomed to crash into the planet in a few million years. RIP.
