A spectacular solar eclipse seen from Mars was captured by NASA's Perseverance rover: the video, published a few hours ago on YouTube, shows with stunning definition the solar disk that in less than a minute is crossed by the dark shape of Phobos, the small moon of Mars with an irregular shape.
The observation, conducted on April 2, will help to better define the satellite's orbit and how its gravity affects the Red Planet by shaping its crust and mantle.
In the past, NASA had already managed to document other solar eclipses from Mars: in 2004 the 'twin' rovers Spirit and Opportunity had filmed for the first time in time-lapse the passage of Phobos in front of the solar disk.
Later also Curiosity had ventured into the enterprise with its Mastcam.
Perseverance, equipped with a new generation Mastcam, managed to capture the phenomenon by producing the video with the highest number of frames and the highest magnification.
The new Mastcam-Z also has a filter that acts like sunglasses to reduce the intensity of light.
This way "you can see the details of Phobos' outline, such as ridges and bumps", Mark Lemmon points out.
planetologist at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colorado who orchestrated most of the observations of Phobos by the Martian rovers.
"It's also possible to see sunspots. And it's great that you can see the eclipse exactly as the rover saw it from Mars."
