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Article: NASA Rovers Watching Solar Eclipses by Mars' Moons.
- Article from:
- AScribe Science News Service
- Article date:
- March 8, 2004
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Byline: Jet Propulsion Laboratory
PASADENA, Calif., March 8 (AScribe Newswire) -- NASA's Mars Exploration Rovers have become eclipse watchers.
Though the Viking landers in the 1970s observed the shadow of one of Mars' two moons, Phobos, moving across the landscape, and Mars Pathfinder in 1997 observed Phobos emerging at night from the shadow of Mars, no previous mission has ever directly observed a moon pass in front of the Sun from the surface of another world.
The current rovers began their eclipse-watching campaign this month. Opportunity's panoramic camera caught Mars' smaller moon, Deimos, as a speck crossing the disc of the Sun on March 4. ...