Eclipse on Mars: Curiosity rover captures Phobos in front of Sun Technology

Curiosity Rover captures photo of total solar eclipse on Mars when Phobos passing between Mars and Sun

Curiosity rover captures Mars eclipse images with it's telephoto camera mounted on it's MAST camera pair on 369th Martian day of it's stay on the planet. Curosity camera team at NASA well prepared to record the event to track Mars's natural satellite Phobos orbit more precisely.

Phobos passed at the closest reach to Curiosity rover on the Mars surface in the mid day in front of the Sun on the day of Martian eclipse on 20th August 2013. The whole eclipse lasted around 15-20 seconds creating the famous ring of the SUn on the planet.

Phobos is very small in comparison to the Earth's natural satellite the Moon. During the total Solar eclipse on Mars Phobos could not cover full Sun on Martian surface for Curiosity rover.

This is for the first time a total Solar eclipse event is recorded on Mars other than the Earth in solar system.     

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