Perseverance has caught the silhouette of Phobos, one of many two Martian moons, sweeping throughout the photo voltaic disk in a recent transit video from Jezero crater.
This picture of Phobos in entrance of the Solar was captured by Perseverance’s Mastcam-Z digicam on August 12, 2026. Picture credit score: NASA / JPL-Caltech / ASU / MSSS / SSI.
Phobos, the bigger and innermost of Mars’ two moons, was found by the American astronomer Asaph Corridor on August 17, 1877.
The moon is roughly 26 x 22 x 18 km (16.2 x 13.7 x 11.2 miles) and has a really lumpy look.
It’s an uncommon satellite tv for pc, orbiting nearer to its planet than some other moon within the Photo voltaic System.
Phobos orbits Mars about 6,000 km (3,700 miles) from the floor and completes an orbit in simply 7 hours and 39 minutes.
It orbits so near the Martian floor that the curvature of the planet would obscure its view from an observer standing in Mars’ polar areas.
Its orbital interval is about 3 instances quicker than the rotation interval of the Purple Planet, with the weird end result amongst pure satellites that Phobos rises within the west and units within the east as seen from Mars.
Not like Earth’s Moon, Phobos is simply too small and too close to its planet to completely block the Solar, so any eclipse it causes from the Martian floor is known as a partial transit, with the moon’s darkish, potato-shaped define sliding throughout the photo voltaic disk reasonably than masking it.
“Perseverance used its Mastcam-Z digicam to seize the silhouette of Phobos because it crossed in entrance of the Solar on August 12, 2026, the 1,948th Martian day, or sol, of the mission,” members of the Perseverance group stated in an announcement.
“The animation has been tinted to simulate what a human would see in the event that they have been watching the transit from the Martian floor by means of protecting photo voltaic eclipse glasses.”
This isn’t Perseverance’s first have a look at the phenomenon: the rover has recorded a number of Phobos transits since touching down at Jezero crater in February 2021.
“By evaluating the assorted recordings, scientists can refine their understanding of the potato-shaped moon’s orbit, studying how it’s altering,” the researchers stated.
“Eons from now, Phobos’ orbit is predicted to ultimately ship the moon towards the Purple Planet’s floor.”
