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This panel illustrates the transit of the martian moon Phobos across the Sun. It is made up of images taken by NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity.
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Martian Moon Eclipses Sun, in Stages

This panel illustrates the transit of the martian moon Phobos across the Sun. It is made up of images taken by the Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity on the morning of the 45th martian day, or sol, of its mission. This observation will help refine our knowledge of the orbit and position of Phobos. Other spacecraft may be able to take better images of Phobos using this new information. This event is similar to solar eclipses seen on Earth in which our Moon passes in front of the Sun. The images were taken by the rover's panoramic camera.

Image details

ID#:
PIA05554

Date added:
2004-03-13

Target:
Sun

Mission:
Mars Exploration Rover (MER)

Spacecraft:
Opportunity

Instruments:
Panoramic Camera

Size:
1080 x 360 pixels (width x height)

Rating:



Views:
2,301

Full-Res TIFF:
PIA05554.tif (0.21 MB)

Full-Res JPG:
PIA05554.jpg (0.01 MB)

Image credit:
NASA/JPL/Cornell