ANTARIKSA — The moon orbiting Mars, Phobos, was caught on camera by NASA’s Perseverance rover on February 8 2024. The potato-shaped moon was seen passing in front of the sun from where the robot was located, Jezero Crater.
Engineers from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) uploaded 68 images of the solar eclipse to the Perseverance raw image repository. The footage was filmed using a Mastcam-Z camera to the left of the rover, one of two surveillance cameras hanging high on Perseverance’s neck-like mast. The camera is often used to get views of the Red Planet’s landscape.
Just like a solar eclipse on Earth, where the moon passes directly between the Earth and the Sun, the planet Mars also experiences an eclipse phase in the part shadowed by Phobos.
Phobos and another Martian moon, Deimos, have an enigmatic formation history. Scientists are not sure whether they came from the asteroid belt, a collision of celestial bodies, debris left over from the early solar system, or from another scenario.
Also read: Message from Mars: Sunspot explosions are now facing Earth
No spacecraft has yet been able to visit Phobos, although quite a few have made flybys over the years. However, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) plans to send a Mars Moon Exploration (MMX) mission to Phobos in 2026.
MMX’s big job is sample return: Picking up dust from small moons and then bringing the grains back to Earth. The dust could provide more clues about the history of the formation of Phobos, as well as the disappearance of the Martian atmosphere.
Thus, MMX can help uncover the mysteries of Phobos and Mars. Scientists are still trying to figure out why the Red Planet lost so much of its atmosphere over thousands of years. This research has implications for habitability and water on Mars, because flowing water requires a certain level of surface pressure. Source: Space.com
2024-02-13 07:47:00
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