Has anyone tampered with the picture? Sloppily erased a spot from the sun? Inserted the shadow of a potato? No, these pictures are real. The Mars rover recorded them perseverancewho has been with his reconnaissance helicopter for a good year ingenuity is traveling on the neighboring planet.
These are not the first images of a Martian eclipse, but they are by far the best ever taken. “I knew it was going to be good, but I wasn’t expecting something this fantastic,” said Rachel Howson of the team that developed the Mastcam-Z camera perseverance cared for. The Rovers Spirit and opportunity first observed the phenomenon in 2004. In 2019 turned curiosity the first videos, which were still very grainy and jerky. These images do not come close to the resolution and frame rate of the new recording.
Mars has two moons, Phobos (fear) and Deimos (dread). These names may seem a bit unsettling, but they are mainly due to the fact that in Greek mythology, Phobos and Deimos are the very companions of Ares, the god of war, the Greek equivalent of the Roman Mars. The two are orders of magnitude smaller than Earth’s moon, Phobos is only 26 kilometers wide, Deimos only 16. But they are much closer to Mars: The larger moon Phobos is less than 10,000 kilometers away on average, so that it can pass through the sun may not completely, but partially obscure and thus lead to a partial solar eclipse. Such has perseverance now included.
Eventually Phobos will crash on Mars
Because the Martian moons are so close to their planet, their orbital periods are also short. The passage of Phobos only lasted about 40 seconds, so the video looks like it was recorded in time lapse. Nevertheless, it is also interesting for research. As Phobos orbits Mars, tidal forces tug at the red planet’s surface. In turn, these powers change the orbit of Phobos. From the change in orbit, which can be easily measured during eclipses, one can deduce how well the crust and mantle of Mars can be deformed, i.e. what its interior is like.
These observations also show that Phobos is lost in the long term. Unlike Earth’s Moon, which is getting farther away from us, Phobos is moving in a slow spiral toward Mars. In a few tens of millions of years it will hit the planet – if it doesn’t break into pieces first.