Googly-eyed potato eclipse filmed by NASA’s Perseverance rover

Phobos isn’t any slowpoke. Given its dimension, angle, and orbital sample, the moon makes a full-circle round Mars roughly as soon as each 7.6 hours. This frequency additionally makes it much more more likely to cross in entrance of the Solar in comparison with Earth’s photo voltaic eclipses. If you happen to had been hypothetically on the proper location on the proper time on Mars, you can glimpse the small, potato-shaped satellite tv for pc briefly turning the Solar into an enormous googly eye. NASA’s Mars Perseverance rover captured simply such an occasion again in February—and it managed to {photograph} one other eclipse barely seven months later.

NASA just lately showcased the most recent Phobos eclipse seen on September thirtieth from the rover’s vantage level on Mars’ Jezero Crater. As soon as once more, the googly eye’s lifespan lasted barely 30 seconds, making Earth’s minutes-long eclipse occasions appear prolonged compared. Like its final documentation, the Phobos footage was captured utilizing Perseverance’s Mastcam-Z, an instrument co-designed and overseen by Arizona State College.

Astronomer Asaph Corridor found the 2 Martian moons in 1877, naming them Phobos and Deimos after the dual Greek gods of worry and dread. Whereas their origins are nonetheless unclear, consultants theorize the pair originated both as asteroids that bought caught by Mars’ gravitational pull, or as particles leftover from the Photo voltaic System’s formation.

[Related: A Martian solar eclipse turns the sun into a giant googly eye.]

At simply 17-miles-wide, Phobos is about 157 instances smaller than Earth’s moon—though each are slowly touring in reverse instructions. Whereas the moon is at present shifting additional away from Earth at a price of about 1.5 inches per yr, each Phobos and Deimos are being drawn nearer to Mars by an estimated six toes each century. At that tempo, the moons are predicted to both smash into their host planet in about 50 million years, or fragment into numerous smaller items to type a Saturn-like ring.

Till then, nevertheless, there can be a lot extra googly eye alternatives for Perseverance—and maybe, at some point, human guests—to doc.