Watch a Phobos photo voltaic eclipse because of NASA’s Perseverance rover

It is a chook! It is a airplane! No, it is Phobos, Mars’ “potato-shaped” moon, crossing the face of the Solar!

NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover zoomed in on a Phobos photo voltaic eclipse and shared the video on its Twitter account on April 20. In it, you may spot a hunk of one thing cross over the Solar, as seen by Perseverance’s Mastcam-Z digital camera on Mars.

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“This detailed video will help scientists on my workforce higher perceive the Martian moon’s orbit and the way its gravity impacts the inside of Mars, together with its crust & mantle,” the rover tweeted. (Yep, NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover tweets in first particular person, giving us all but one more reason to watch WALL-E and cry.)

The video was initially captured on April 2, almost 400 days into Perserverance’s mission. The eclipse lasted a bit over 40 seconds, which is much shorter than the everyday photo voltaic eclipse we see right here on Earth — these often final about seven and a half minutes. It is also totally different from a photo voltaic eclipse we’re used to seeing as a result of Phobos does not fully cowl up the Solar; as a substitute, it simply passes by. That is as a result of, in line with NASA, Phobos is about 157 instances smaller than Earth’s Moon. And Mars’ different moon, Deimos, is even smaller than that.

“I knew it was going to be good, however I didn’t anticipate it to be this superb,” Rachel Hows, one of many Mastcam-Z workforce members who operates the digital camera, mentioned in a press launch. “It appears like a birthday or vacation when [the images] arrive. You recognize what’s coming, however there’s nonetheless a component of shock once you get to see the ultimate product.”

This is not the primary time we have seen Phobos cross over the solar. In 2004, NASA rovers Spirit and Alternative took the primary pictures of a Phobos photo voltaic eclipse, and Curiosity took one, too. However Perseverance captured the highest quality video of a Phobos photo voltaic eclipse. You’ll be able to even see coloration on this video, not like previous captures of the eclipse, which lets us see sunspots and ridges and bumps on the moon.

It is a magnificence for certain, however Phobos is right here for a great time, not a very long time. Because the moon will get nearer to the Martian floor, it is doomed to crash into the planet in a number of million years. RIP.