The NASA Curiosity rover showed us two solar solar eclipses

On Earth, total solar eclipses are spectacular events. But they are the result of a total coincidence: the moon, in the moments when it passes between the Earth and the sun, is the perfect size to cover the sun completely from our present position. He erases it, revealing the atmosphere of the sun, the great bright solar corona.

There is no scientific reason for this. We are just lucky.

In March, NASA's Curiosity robot witnessed two solar eclipses from the red planet.

The most striking is the Martian moon Phobos, which accelerated on March 26 on Mars. Unlike Earth, the moons of Mars do not completely erase the sun. Instead, they appear as small, potato-shaped objects transiting on the surface of the sun.

This is what the rover saw on March 26, while the Martian moon Phobos was crossing the face of the sun.

The image of Phobos was taken with the Curiosity mast camera, to which is attached a special sunscreen (much like the solar eclipse glasses you would use to watch the sun on Earth). NASA just released these images on Thursday.

On March 17, the Deimos, the much smaller moon, crawled much more slowly on the surface of the sun. It is more of a "passage" of the sun than an eclipse, but is still well cared for.

The two moons of Mars – Phobos and Deimos – are small and distinct from our moon. Phobos, the larger of the two is only 16 miles wide.

But what is missing in size, it compensates in speed. Phobos is caught in a very fast orbit around Mars, making a revolution in about eight hours. This means that he gets up and goes to bed several times during a typical Martian day (which is about 37 minutes longer than ours). Phobos is also incredibly close to Mars – its orbit at a distance of 3,000 km. Our moon is 239,000 miles. Deimos is even smaller, about 8 km in diameter, orbiting Mars every 30 hours.

On Mars, a solar eclipse occurs almost daily. The orbit of the Martian moon Phobos is almost directly above its equator; our moon, on the other hand, is on an inclined orbit, so that the Earth, the sun and the moon do not line up as often. And this is not the first time that Curiosity has captured solar eclipse images on Mars. But the images are important because they help scientists better understand the movement of the moons of Mars.

ASA / JPL-Caltech / Space Science Systems Malin / Texas A & M University

The rover has captured recent eclipses, as eclipsing observation helps scientists understand Mars and his moons. Phobos, for example, should continue to dive closer and closer to the surface of Mars, due to tidal forces.

"More observations over time help to pinpoint the details of each orbit," said Mark Lemmon, NASA's co-investigator in charge of Mast Cam, in a press release. "These orbits change all the time in response to the gravitational pull of Mars, Jupiter or even each Martian moon pulling on each other." Watching them move through the sun helps NASA discover the orbits of the moon.

It's also just cool. Curiosity was also able to see the shadow of Phobos as he passed over the sun. Here is what it looked like.