News | April 4, 2019 Curiosity Captured Two Solar Eclipses on Mars When NASA's Curiosity Mars rover landed in 2012, it brought along eclipse glasses. The solar filters on its Mast Camera (Mastcam) allow it to stare directly at the Sun. Over the past few weeks, Curiosity has been putting them to good use by sending back some spectacular imagery of solar eclipses caused by Phobos and Deimos, Mars' two moons. Phobos, which is as wide as 16 miles (26 kilometers) across, was imaged on March 26, 2019 (the 2,359th sol, or Martian day, of Curiosity's mission); Deimos, which is as wide as 10 miles (16 kilometers) across, was photographed on March 17, 2019 (Sol 2350). Phobos doesn't completely cover the Sun, so it would be considered an annular eclipse. Because Deimos is so small compared to the disk of the Sun, scientists would say it's transiting the Sun. In addition to capturing each moon crossing in front of the Sun, one of Curiosity's Navigation Cameras (Navcams) observed the shadow of Phobos on March 25, 2019 (Sol 235. As the moon's shadow passed over the rover during sunset, it momentarily darkened the light. ... https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?feature=7366 There are animations available at the link. You can cycle through them using the arrows. Pretty cool! The shadow reminds me of how that last eclipse looked from my place (I'm too far north to have gotten the full eclipse, but I saw the crescent sun and noticed how dark it got).
Very cool. My favorite bit of Mars trivia: On Deimos, an average fit person could run and jump off the moon, and land on Mars. I want my reentry suit!!!
