This is what a solar eclipse on Mars looks like

Solar eclipses on Earth are rare and wonderful events. The total eclipse of August 21, 2017 did not reach my entire home, but it was still impressive. NASA scientists have published images of what a solar eclipse on Mars looks like, where they occur and look quite different from here.

On Earth, solar eclipses can be partial, annular or total. The reason this can happen on Earth is that the Moon and the Sun are almost identical apparent size in our sky, despite being very different in the actual size and distance of the planet. This means that when the situation is correctly aligned, the Moon can briefly block the Sun.

On Mars, this can not happen. While the apparent size of the Sun is smaller on Mars, the Moons of Phobos and Deimos of Mars are proportionally much smaller than our own Moon. Phobos is the largest moon, but its radius is only 11.2 km. The radius of the moon, in comparison, is 1079 miles. Deimos and Phobos both have an equatorial orbit around Mars, which means that they travel almost daily through the sun. Deimos is even smaller than Phobos, with an average radius of 6.2 km. Neither moon has gravity itself.

Phobos

That's Phobos, which revolves around Mars faster than Mars itself turns. The moon should only survive between 30 and 50 million years ago. Finally, the atmospheric drag will slow it down enough to hit the surface of the planet. Deimos, on the contrary, will eventually escape Mars and will be thrown into space.

The transit Deimos. Like Phobos, Deimos can be a pile of rubble or contain a large amount of ice. Phobos moves much faster than Deimos and is much closer to Mars.

Mars is the only other rocky planet in our solar system to have moons, but the differences between Phobos, Deimos and Luna are quite big. The two Martian moons can be asteroid captures or objects that have gathered around the planet in formation, or they could have formed in orbit after the impact of Mars on a planet. Research on the formation of the moons of the planet is still ongoing. All in all, the two moons look a lot like the C or D asteroids. NASA continues to regularly observe the moons to better understand the Martian orbital dynamics, including the impact of Jupiter and the changes made by the two moons on the orbit of the other.

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