NASA’s Perseverance rover on Mars captured images of the planet’s moon Phobos passing in front of the sun, creating a partial solar eclipse.
A timelapse of 68 photos taken by the rover’s Mastcam-Z camera on February 8th shows Phobos’ transit across the sun.
Like Earth, planets with moons can experience eclipses, but Phobos is too small to completely cover the sun.
Previous Mars rovers have observed Phobos’ transits, but this provides more images of the phenomena.
Studying shifts in Phobos’ orbit over time provides clues about Mars’ interior composition and geology.
Phobos is destined to either crash into Mars or break up into a ring system in the next 50 million years due to Mars’ gravity.
The images from Perseverance add to observations of celestial events on Mars and help scientists learn more about the planet and its moons.
