from the there's-nothing-I-can-do-an-annular-eclipse-of-the-heart dept.
The Mastcam-Z camera recorded video of Phobos, one of the Red Planet’s two moons:
NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover has captured dramatic footage of Phobos, Mars’ potato-shaped moon, crossing the face of the Sun. These observations can help scientists better understand the moon’s orbit and how its gravity pulls on the Martian surface, ultimately shaping the Red Planet’s crust and mantle.
Captured with Perseverance’s next-generation Mastcam-Z camera on April 2, the 397th Martian day, or sol, of the mission, the eclipse lasted a little over 40 seconds – much shorter than a typical solar eclipse involving Earth’s Moon. (Phobos is about 157 times smaller than Earth’s Moon. Mars’ other moon, Deimos, is even smaller.)
[...]. “I knew it was going to be good, but I didn’t expect it to be this amazing,” said Rachel Howson of Malin Space Science Systems in San Diego, one of the Mastcam-Z team members who operates the camera.
[...] Color also sets this version of a Phobos solar eclipse apart. Mastcam-Z has a solar filter that acts like sunglasses to reduce light intensity. “You can see details in the shape of Phobos’ shadow, like ridges and bumps on the moon’s landscape,” said Mark Lemmon, a planetary astronomer with the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colorado, who has orchestrated most of the Phobos observations by Mars rovers. “You can also see sunspots. And it’s cool that you can see this eclipse exactly as the rover saw it from Mars.
Kudos to the orbitologists who knew the positions of all the appropriate bodies and got the timing right. The really cool video is also up on YouTube (but I don't think you would call this an annular eclipse since nothing looks like an annulus!)
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 22 2022, @08:23AM (3 children)
I know this wasn't the first such movie, but a pretty ace sight to see. Also, kudos to SN for yet another article linked directly to nasa/jpl source site. Phobos made of potato, we mist have a full menu locally in our solar system.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 22 2022, @01:59PM (2 children)
I didn't really know that there had been a previous movie of an eclipse on mars.
I guess I got spoiled by today's special effects in various movies, I'm finding it hard to actually feel how big a deal this is. I do know it, intellectually.
I never actually did the calculation, and I always assumed phobos and deimos would be too small to be visible as anything but dots.
(Score: 2) by cmdrklarg on Friday April 22 2022, @04:23PM (1 child)
Phobos is pretty small at about 7 miles across, but the orbit is only 3700 miles above the surface of Mars, making it the closest orbiting moon (known). It takes a bit less than 8 hours for Phobos to orbit Mars. Phobos is one hundredth the size of the Moon, but also orbits 100 times closer, so it can look as large as the Moon does from Earth.
Deimos is smaller at about 4 miles across and orbits higher at about 14,580 miles, so looks quite a bit smaller. Best picture that I found that illustrates this:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:PIA17352-MarsMoons-PhobosPassesDeimos-RealTime.gif [wikipedia.org]
Cool video!
Answer now is don't give in; aim for a new tomorrow.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 23 2022, @01:06AM
Because Phobos is so close, it is actually spiraling in and will crash into Mars in the not-too-distant-future. (Well, "not-too-distant" in a solar system time scale kind of thing at least)
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Friday April 22 2022, @01:45PM (4 children)
This observation will help put to rest the huge controversy of whether gravity on flat Mars works the same way as gravity on flat Earth.
How often should I have my memory checked? I used to know but...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 22 2022, @04:15PM (3 children)
Are you sure? Phobos looks like a flat disk in that movie to me.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 22 2022, @08:55PM (2 children)
That's the sun. Phobos is the potato casting a shadow on it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 22 2022, @11:56PM (1 child)
what is really cool, is you cannot see the hand or any strings holding the potato.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 23 2022, @01:38AM
Mars only has 1/3 of Earth's gravity, so you can throw stuff really slow.