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NASA’s Mars Exploration Rover Perseverance captures a dramatic solar eclipse. The image shows a surprising scene in which Mars’ small moon Phobos largely obscures the sun’s face.
Perseverance, exploring life on Mars, is taking a break on April 2nd to reach the ancient Martian river delta (which was announced to have successfully arrived there yesterday) while observing the small Martian moon passing across the front of the sun. became
An official from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Southern California, USA, which oversees Perseverance’s mission, said: “These observations show scientists how the satellite’s orbit and its gravity pull on the Martian surface, ultimately shaping the Martian crust and mantle. It will help us understand,” he said in a statement.
NASA’s other Mars rover Curiosity has also observed an eclipse, but new footage from Perseverance’s Mastcam-Z camera provides the most powerful view of such an event on Mars at a high frame rate never before used on Mars, the mission team said. member said.
“I knew it was going to work, but I didn’t expect it to be this surprising,” said Rachel Howson, a member of Mastcam-Z at the Marlin Space Center (MSSS) in San Diego, in the same statement.
Mars has two very small moons. The largest of these is Phobos, which is about 157 times smaller than Earth’s moon, and the smallest is Deimos, which is much smaller than Phobos. Both moons were discovered by American astronomer Asaf Hall in 1877 and are named after the two sons of Mars in Greek mythology. Scientists believe that the two rugged moons may have been asteroids captured by Mars’ gravity in the distant past.
They always face the same side towards the moon, the researchers added, of which Phobos is falling into a death spiral orbit that is slowly approaching Mars, and is expected to hit the Martian surface in tens of millions of years, the researchers added. Deimos, on the other hand, is far enough away and is slowly moving away.
Observations of this kind of eclipse by the Mars rover over about 20 years have deepened our understanding of the orbits of the slowly collapsing Mars moons.
“While Phobos orbits Mars, its gravity exerts a small tidal force inside Mars that slightly deforms the planet’s crust and rocks in the mantle,” said a JPL official, who said these observations are learning more about the structure of Mars. “It also slowly changes Phobos’ orbit,” he explains. “As a result, geophysicists can use these changes to better understand how flexible Mars’ interior is, and to learn more about the crust and matter inside the mantle.” added.
In past rover missions, Phobos or Deimos have been seen moving across the sun. A JPL official observed Phobos through NASA’s twin rover Spirit and Opportunity in 2004, and the mission team members linked it with a time-lapse video.
Perseverance’s Mastcam-Z is an upgrade over the previous Rover’s camera system. Filters, such as sunglasses, reduce the intensity of sunlight, allowing scientists to look more closely at Phobos’ outlines and sunspots.
Perseverance has been on a year-long expedition to find evidence of ancient life on Mars, while collecting and storing dozens of samples with evidence of Martian organisms. NASA and the European Space Agency plan to return those samples to Earth through a sample return campaign over the next decade.
Perseverance’s journey includes the first unmanned helicopter flight to Mars. The small helicopter, the size of a toilet paper bin, has made 25 successful over Mars so far, five times more than the planned flight list.
Columnist Lee Kwang-sik [email protected]