NASA's Perseverance rover for Mars captured a rare moment of “googly eye” during the recent solar eclipse.
According to CNN, the rover observed the rare moment when Mars’ moon Phobos moved in front of the Sun, creating a patio-shaped shadow on the moon.
As per NASA, the eclipse on Mars lasted for 30 seconds compared to a minute-long solar eclipse on Earth because Phobos is about 157 times smaller in diameter than Earth's moon.
NASA’s JET Propulsion Laboratory, which is overseeing the rover mission, wrote in a post on its website, “Captured by the rover’s Mastcam-Z on September 30, the 1,285th Martian day of Perseverance’s mission, the event took place when the potato-shaped moon passed directly between the sun and a point on the surface of Mars, obscuring a large part of the sun’s disc.”
“At the same time that Phobos appeared as a large black disc rapidly moving across the face of the sun, its shadow, or antumbra, moved across the planet’s surface,” it added.
After capturing the latest observation, Perseverance has carried on the previous Mars rovers’ tradition of observing and recording the Martian eclipse. Previously, the Curiosity Rover in 2019 and the Opportunity Rover in 2024 snapped and recorded valuable insights.
