国产精品99一区二区三_免费中文日韩_国产在线精品一区二区_日本成人手机在线

NASA's Curiosity rover captures 2 solar eclipses on Mars

Source: Xinhua| 2019-04-05 17:12:48|Editor: Xiang Bo
Video PlayerClose

LOS ANGELES, April 4 (Xinhua) -- NASA's Curiosity rover has captured two solar eclipses on Mars over the past few weeks caused by Phobos and Deimos, Mars' two moons, according to a NASA release on Thursday.

Curiosity captured the eclipses by its Mast Camera (Mastcam), and sent some spectacular imagery back to the earth.

Phobos, which is about 11.5 kilometers across, was imaged on March 26, 2019. Deimos, which is about 2.3 kilometers across, was photographed on March 17, 2019.

According to NASA, Phobos doesn't completely cover the sun, so it would be considered an annular eclipse. As Deimos is so small compared to the disk of the sun, scientists said it's "transiting" the sun.

In addition to capturing each moon crossing in front of the sun, one of Curiosity's Navigation Cameras (Navcams) observed the shadow of Phobos on March 25, 2019. As the moon's shadow passed over the rover during sunset, it momentarily darkened the light.

Solar eclipses have been seen many times by Curiosity and other rovers in the past. These events helped researchers fine-tune their understanding of each moon's orbit around Mars.

Mark Lemmon, a co-investigator with Curiosity's Mastcam, said before the Spirit and Opportunity rovers landed in 2004 that there was much higher uncertainty in the orbit of each moon. The first time one of the rovers tried to image Deimos eclipsing the sun, scientists found the moon was 40 kilometers away from where they expected.

"More observations over time help pin down the details of each orbit," Lemmon said. "Those orbits change all the time in response to the gravitational pull of Mars, Jupiter or even each Martian moon pulling on the other."

Eclipses, sunrises and sunsets and weather phenomena all make Mars real to people, as a world both like and unlike what they see outside, not just a subject in a book, Lemmon said.

To date, there have been eight observations of Deimos and about 40 observations of Phobos eclipsing the sun from either Spirit, Opportunity or Curiosity rover, according to NASA.

TOP STORIES
EDITOR’S CHOICE
MOST VIEWED
EXPLORE XINHUANET
010020070750000000000000011100001379525851
主站蜘蛛池模板: 长泰县| 罗甸县| 屏南县| 西丰县| 三门县| 浦江县| 洞口县| 鹰潭市| 石泉县| 嘉定区| 墨玉县| 建阳市| 肃宁县| 石河子市| 泊头市| 西昌市| 大田县| 丁青县| 神农架林区| 上蔡县| 都兰县| 永丰县| 贵定县| 黎川县| 天峨县| 浙江省| 金寨县| 新民市| 岫岩| 漠河县| 红安县| 广州市| 蒲城县| 项城市| 灵石县| 藁城市| 琼海市| 敦煌市| 宝山区| 改则县| 灵璧县|