Curiosity has captured the moment Mars experienced a solar eclipse.

The rover, which has been on the surface of the red planet since 2012, pictured Mars’ moon Phobos passing in front of the sun.

Nasa fitted the vehicle with special solar lenses that allow it to stare up at the sun from the rocky Martian landscape.

Phobos measures about 7 miles across and the eclipse was captured on March 26. Earlier in the month the rover had also captured Deimos, another Martian moon, passing in front of the sun.


Curiosity captured the sky darken (Nasa)

Deimos is too small to blot out the sun, so it’s termed as a transit rather than an eclipse. Even Phobos didn’t cover the sun completely, rendering it an ‘annular eclipse’.



Mark Lemmon, from the Texas A&M University, College Station, who is a co-investigator with Curiosity’s Mastcam camera said that this is what makes Mars relateable.

Phobos passing in front of the sun seen from the surface of Mars (Nasa)

‘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,’ he said.

The shadow of Phobos as it sweeps over Nasa’s Curiosity rover and darkens the sunlight on Monday, March 25, 2019 (Nasa)

‘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.’