Credits: Social Media
Image of the Sun with huge black speck causes mass confusion, but the answer is in Mars
The latest images released by NASA depicting the sun during the solar eclipse on Mars imagine the celestial body as a giant googly eye.
The Martian solar eclipse isn’t as rare as the ones that occur on Earth; the two moons pass between the Red Planet and the sun around 13000 times in a year.
NASA images of solar eclipse on Mars confuse users
The latest images released by NASA’s rover, Perseverance, show one of its moons – Phobos – crossing in front of the sun last week.
The solar eclipse reportedly took place on February 8 as Phobos passed over Jezero crater to cross the sun. NASA’s rover positioned in the same area captured the occurrence.
The transit of Phobos from Mars typically lasts only thirty seconds due to the moon’s rapid orbital period.
As the moon is the size of an asteroid, it doesn’t cover the majority of the Sun and only appears like a black dot on a humongous white sphere – like a googly eye looking in all directions.
However, the vast majority didn’t understand at first what caused the black speck on the sun as the solar eclipse witnessed from Earth is entirely different.
“What is it blocking the sun?,” asked one user, when another added: “Does Mars even have a moon big enough to form an eclipse?”
A third person wrote: “Can someone please explain to me the huge sunspot in NASA pictures?”
Mars moons are among the smallest in the solar system
Mars’ two moons – Phobos and Deimos – were discovered by Asaph Hall in 1877. Their names in Greek mean fear and dread respectively.
They are two of the smallest moons in the solar system, according to NASA and Phobos orbits the closest to Mars than any other moon of a different planet.
While the larger moon goes around Mars thrice a day, Deimos is slightly farther and takes 30 hours for each orbit.
Phobos is said to be inching closer to the surface of Mars each year, by spiraling inward about six feet. It is expected to crash into the planet in 50 million years to form a ring around it.
It has only 1/1000th of the gravitational pull on Earth. So a person weighing 170-pound person would with as little as 77 grams on the Bigger Mars moon.
