Mars Deimos Eclipse

[blobrana]

A rare solar crossing of the Sun by the martian moon Deimos on the 4 th March was captured by the Panoramic Camera of Opportunity Mars rover.

The solar transit of the martian moon occurs only twice per Mars year (one Mars year is equivalent to roughly two Earth years).

Deimos is a dark body that appears to be composed of C-type surface materials, similar to that of asteroids found in the outer asteroid belt (so is probably captured).
 Named after the Roman God of dread, Deimos is the smaller of Mars' two moons. Deimos whirls around Mars every 30 hours. The natural moon is 10 by 7.5 miles (16 by 12 kilometres) in size...



Hum, anybody getting ready for the transit of Venus?

[KennyR]

I wonder if we should downgrade Phobos and Deimos from the classification of "moon". They are just large rocks. Jupiter probably has a million of these orbiting it that we haven't seen yet.

[blobrana]

I know what you mean...
i think that the governing body has a rough guide of classing satellites smaller that a few miles big as planetesimal's or rocks..

 Like its sister moon Phobos ( Greek for "Fear")  is non-spherical in shape. Probably , and it is also a captured asteroid.
i hope that nasa manages to catch a similar transit with the larger and closer orbiting `Phobos`, which could blot out half the sun for 40-30 seconds or more.

Somewhere on a planet far, far away, near the martian equator, Phobos eclipses the sun nearly every day.

[Speelgoedmannetje]

@KennyR
Well, Jupiter has moons somewhat as big as planets, alike Pluto or so if I'm right.

When call it a moon, a meteorite or a planet?

[Gelb]

edit: should have gone as PM. WTF? :-)

[sumner7]

Are you sure that's not 4 holes in a cardboard box?

[blobrana]

Well nasa is a bit short on the cash front,
but, they certainly came up with the goods...

[sumner7]

blobrana wrote:
Well nasa is a bit short on the cash front,
but, they certainly came up with the goods...

That also looks like 2 holes in a cardboard box... :laugh: