New Delhi: NASA's Perseverance Mars rover has captured a video of solar eclipse on the Red Planet. The video shows Mars' potato-shaped moon, Phobos, crossing the face of the Sun.
With the help of these observations, scientists can better understand Phobos' orbit and how its gravity pulls on the Martian surface. It is the gravity which ultimately shapes Mars' crust and mantle.
The eclipse was captured with Perseverance's next-generation Mastcam-Z camera on the 397th Martian day, or sol, of the mission.
According to NASA, the eclipse lasted a little more than 40 seconds, which is much shorter than a typical solar eclipse involving Earth's Moon. This is because Phobos is about 157 times smaller than Earth's Moon.
For several years, NASA spacecraft have captured solar eclipses on Mars. In 2004, the twin NASA rovers Spirit and Opportunity captured the first time-lapse pictures of Phobos during a solar eclipse. The Curiosity rover also shot videos of solar eclipses on Mars using its Mastcam camera system.
How Is Perseverance's Footage Special?
The footage captured by Perseverance is special because it is the most zoomed-in video of a Phobos solar eclipse yet, and at the highest-frame ever, according to NASA. This is because Perseverance's next-generation Mastcam-Z camera system is a zoomable upgrade from Curiosity's Mastcam.
Rachel Howson of Making Space Science Systems in San Diego, one of the Mastcam-Z camera members who operates the camera, said in a NASA statement that she knew it was going to be good, but did not expect it to be "this amazing".
Perseverance first sends lower-resolution thumbnails that offer a glimpse of the images to come. Howson said she was stunned by the full-resolution versions.
Another factor which sets this version of a Phobos solar eclipse apart is colour. Mastcam-Z is equipped with a solar filter which acts like sunglasses to reduce light anxiety, according to NASA.
Mark Lemmon, a planetary astronomer with the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colorado, said that one can see details in the shape of Phobos' shadow, like ridges and bumps on the moon's landscape.
The gravity of Phobos exerts small tidal forces on Mars' interior. This slightly deforms the Red Planet's crust and mantle, and the forces slowly change Phobos' orbit. Therefore, these changes can be analysed by geophysicists to better understand how pliable the interior of Mars is, revealing more about the materials within the crust and mantle of the Red Planet.
However, Phobos is doomed because it is getting closer to the Martian surface and is destined to crash into the planet in tens of millions of years. Scientists have been able to refine their understanding of Phobos' slow death spiral through eclipse observations from the Martian surface over the last two decades.
Perseverance's mission is to study the Jezero Crater to understand the geology and habitability of the region, search for signs of ancient microscopic life, and know about past climatic conditions on Mars.