Washington, Sept 1 (ANI): Mars rover Curiosity has been able to capture the sharpest-ever images of a solar eclipse as seen from the Red Planet.
The 1-ton Curiosity rover snapped pictures with its telephoto lens as Phobos, the larger of Mars' two tiny moons, blotted out much of the solar disk on August 17, Fox News reported.
Mark Lemmon of Texas A and M University, a co-investigator for Curiosity's Mastcam instrument, said that this event occurred near noon at Curiosity's location, which put Phobos at its closest point to the rover, appearing larger against the sun than it would at other times of day.
He said that this is the closest to a total eclipse of the sun that you can have from Mars.
Phobos does not completely cover the sun as seen from the Red Planet's surface, so the August 17 event was an annular or "ring of fire" eclipse, like the one that wowed skywatchers here on Earth from Australia to Hawaii in May of this year. (ANI)
|
|
Comments:
