Earth usually witnesses only four to seven eclipses in a year counting a partial solar eclipse and a partial lunar eclipse. But on Mars, the occurrence of eclipses is a daily event; claimed a new illustration developed by NASA. As shown by the graphics made by NASA that compared earth’s moon with the moons of Mars, on the Red Planet, a solar eclipse is a pretty daily event. Now, if you think eclipses on Earth is cool and rare; then you need to visit Mars once.
According to NASA, generally, every year, Earth experiences four to seven eclipses out of which few are the partial solar eclipses – when the moon doesn’t fully envelop the sun and lunar eclipses when the shadow of earth partially covered up the moon. But on Mars, the case is entirely different. On the Red Planet, the solar eclipses are almost a daily event. For describing how tinier the Martian moons in contrast to earth’s moon, NASA has published a graphics, showing how a solar eclipse is a daily event on the Red Planet.
As demonstrated by NASA’s graphics, if a person stands up on the Martian surface, he can see it crossing the sky twice in one single day. Mars only take eight earth hours to complete its one orbit to the sun, thanks to its smaller size. Moreover, due to its smaller size, Mars also appears tinier than earth’s moon does to us. Mars currently has two known moons – small, potato-sized orbs dubbed Phobos and Deimos. In contrast to earth’s only natural satellite, Mars’ moons are tiny and more minuscule. But surprisingly, the Martian moons orbit its host planet at a much closer distance is compared to the Moon orbits earth. While our satellite is positioned nearly 238,000 miles away from Earth, Martian moon Phobos is stationed only about 6,000 miles away from the Martian surface.
As explained by NASA, because the Martian eclipse takes place at noontime at the location of Curiosity Spacecraft on Mars, Phobos remains completely overhead, nearer to the rover than it used to be in the early morning or the later part of the afternoon. And this timing makes the silhouette of Phobos to be bigger than the sun, resulting in an almost total solar eclipse on Mars daily.
