Mars rover eclipse photos to shed light on planet's composition (+video)
Scientists will use these photos to nail down the orbits of Phobos and Deimos precisely, and to determine how much they have changed over the last few years, researchers said. This information, in turn, could yield key insights about the interior of Mars, which remains largely mysterious.
As part of a multi-mission campaign, NASA's Curiosity rover is observing Martian moon transits, the first of which involved the moon Phobos grazing the sun's disk. The event was observed on Martian day, or sol, 37 (Sept. 13) using Curiosity's Mast Camera, or Mastcam, equipped with special filters for directly observing the sun
NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
Photos of several partial solar eclipses on Mars snapped recently by NASA's Curiosity rover may help scientists better understand the Red Planet's interior structure and composition, researchers say.
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The 1-ton Curiosity rover captured Mars' tiny moon Phobos taking a nibble out of the sun's disk last Thursday (Sept. 13). Several days later, it watched additional partial eclipses caused by Phobos and Deimos, the Red Planet's other minuscule satellite (though images from these last two celestial events are not available yet).
Scientists will use these photos to nail down the orbits of Phobos and Deimos precisely, and to determine how much they have changed over the last few years, researchers said. This information, in turn, could yield key insights about the interior of Mars, which remains largely mysterious.
"We can't go inside Mars, but we can use these to tell how much Mars is deformed when the moons go by," Curiosity science team co-investigator Mark Lemmon, of Texas A&M University, told reporters today (Sept. 19). "So we measure the transits very precisely, we get information on Mars' interior structure." [7 Biggest Mysteries of Mars]
Phobos is just 14 miles (22 kilometers) wide on average, and Deimos is even smaller. Many scientists think both satellites are asteroids that were captured by the Red Planet's gravity long ago.
Neither moon will be in its current orbit forever. Deimos, which whips around Mars every 30 hours or so, is speeding up, while Phobos is slowing down in its eight-hour orbit. Scientists think Mars' gravity will probably destroy Phobos, perhaps in the next 10 to 15 million years or so.
"It will work its way in at some point and get so close that tidal forces from Mars will very likely break it up before it does start grazing the atmosphere and come down," Lemmon said. "So Mars may briefly have a ring system."
The Curiosity team has been doing more than just skywatching since landing the $2.5 billion robot inside Mars' huge Gale Crater on Aug. 5. Researchers have thoroughly vetted Curiosity and its 10 science instruments, which are designed to help the rover determine if the Gale area could ever have supported microbial life.
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