Perseverance gets the best eclipse sequences on Mars

the wanderer NASA persevere On Mars, Phobos, the potato-shaped moon of the red planet, was photographed crossing the face of the sun.

These notes can help Scientists understand the moon’s orbit better How do you pull its attractiveness? Mars surfaceaccording to NASA.

Captured on camera Mastcam-Z by Perseverance On April 2, Sol 397, or Sol, the eclipse lasted just over 40 seconds, well short of 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.

broadcast photos

Pictures are The newest in the long history of NASA’s spacecraft that captures a solar eclipse on Mars. In 2004, two robotic explorers discovered the NASA, Soul and Opportunity, The first photo sequences of Phobos were taken during a solar eclipse. Curiosity continued the trend with videos captured by the Mastcam camera system.

really amazing. I zoomed in with my Mastcam-Z on the Phobos Solar Eclipse. This detailed video can help the scientists on my team better understand the orbit of the Martian moon and how its gravity affects the interior of Mars, including its crust and mantle. https://t.co/jVdJ4UwhDx pic.twitter.com/q45HwKwLIS

– NASA Persevere on Mars (@NASAPersevere) April 20 2022

But perseverance, which landed in February 2021, saved The most enlarged video of the solar eclipse From Phobos so far, with the highest frame rate ever. That’s thanks to Perseverance’s next-generation Mastcam-Z camera system, a zoomable upgrade to Curiosity’s Mastcam.

“I knew it was going to be good, but I didn’t expect it to be so amazing,” said Rachel Howson of Malin Space Science Systems in San Diego, one of the Mastcam-Z team members operating the camera.

Husun ​​noted that despite perseverance first Send low resolution thumbnails Giving a glimpse of upcoming photos, I was surprised by the full-res reproductions: “It feels like a birthday or holiday when they arrive. You know what’s coming, but there’s still an element of surprise when you see the finished product.”

solar eclipse

The color also distinguishes this version of the solar eclipse from Phobos. Mastkam-Z It has a solar filter that works like sunglasses to reduce the intensity of light.

“You can see details in the form of Phobos’ shadow, like the bulges and bulges on the moon’s surface,” he said in a statement. Mark Lemon, a planetary astronomer at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colorado, who organized most of Phobos’ observations from Mars. “You can also see sunspots. It’s great that you can see this eclipse just as the probe saw it from Mars.”

As Phobos orbits Mars, its gravity exerts small tidal forces on the red planet’s interior, causing slight distortion of the rocks in the planet’s crust and mantle. These forces also slowly change Phobos’ orbit. As a result, geophysicists can use these changes to better understand how resilient the interior of Mars is, revealing more about the materials within the crust and mantle.

Scientists already know that Phobos is doomed: the Moon is approaching the surface of Mars and is due to collide with the planet in tens of millions of years. But observations of eclipses from the surface of Mars over the past two decades have also allowed scientists to improve their understanding of Phobos’ slow death spiral.