Curiosity Rover Sees Solar Eclipse On Mars

SchrodingerZ writes "Though solar eclipses are fairly common on Earth (much more in the southern hemisphere), yesterday the Mars Curiosity Rover caught sight of a partial solar eclipse in Gale Crater on the Red planet. The martian moon Phobos took a small bite out of the sun on the 37th day (Sol 37) of the rover's martian mission. The Curiosity Rover was able to take a picture of the rare event through a 'neutral density filter that reduced the sunlight to a thousandth of its natural intensity.' This protects the camera from the intense light rays seen during an eclipse or looking directly at the sun. It is possible a short movie of the event could be compiled from the data in the near future. More solar transits of Mars's moon (including the second moon Deimos) are predicted to happen in the days to come."

Re:An eclipse is NOT more common in S. hemishere

[slashmydots]

You forgot to factor in the ancient mayan priest ghosts that can control the eclipses at will.

Mar's moon?

[Anonymous Coward]

What is this Mar they are speaking about?

Re:An eclipse is NOT more common in S. hemishere

[ArsenneLupin]

More importantly, you forgot that we don't have any infinite time scale to average on, because the world only exists since a finite amount of time, and will stop existing on December 21st later this year. And during this finite timespan, the southern hemisphere did have noticably more solar eclipses!

Re:Eclipse, or transit?

[Charliemopps]

And you're probably the same asshat that declassified Pluto as a planet.