Perseverance Rover Watches 'Googly Eye' Solar Eclipse from Mars (Video)

NASA's Mars rover Perseverance experienced a solar eclipse in which the moon Phobos passed in front of the sun.

Phobos – one of Mars' two moons, along with the even smaller one Deimos – traveled between the Red Planet and the Sun on September 30ththe 1,285th Mars day of the Perseverance mission. The rover, then located on the western wall of Jezero Crater on Mars, captured the eclipse with its powerful Mastcam-Z camera system.

NASA recently shared a new video Footage captured by Perseverance showing the tiny, potato-shaped moon moving in front of the sun's disk. Phobos appeared as a dark black object against the warm glow of the Sun, creating what looks like a “googly eye” (with Phobos being the pupil) in the sky above Mars.

This isn't the first time Perseverance has witnessed one Solar eclipse out of Mars. Given that Phobos orbits the Red Planet once every 7.6 hours, this type of event is actually much more common on Mars than eclipses on Earth.

Related: See! The first-ever photo of Earth and Mars' moon Phobos, taken from the Red Planet

“Because Phobos' orbit coincides almost perfectly with the Martian equator and is relatively close to the planet's surface, lunar transits occur on most days of the Martian year,” NASA officials said the statement Sharing the new Perseverance video footage.

With a width of just 27 kilometers at its widest point, Phobos is about 157 times smaller in diameter Earth's moon. Due to its fast orbit, a transit of Phobos typically only lasts about 30 seconds. The video footage shared shows the solar eclipse in real time and accelerated four times.

“At the same time that Phobos appeared as a large black disk moving rapidly across the face of the Sun, its shadow, or antumbra, moved across the planet's surface,” NASA officials said in the statement.

In addition to EnduranceNASA curiosity And Opportunity Rovers have also been invited to solar eclipses on Mars, where Phobos passes in front of the sun. By tracking various solar eclipse events over the past 20 years, scientists can learn more about the moon and the changes in its orbit.

This data is particularly useful because Phobos approaches Mars at a speed of 6 feet (1.8 meters) every 100 years. As a result, the moon is expected to crash into the Red Planet within about 50 million years, the statement said.

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