Curiosity Rover Sees Solar Eclipse On Mars 46
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."
An eclipse is NOT more common in S. hemishere (Score:5, Interesting)
I don't know where the submitter or editor got his/her eclipse frequency info, but the chances of an eclipse occuring are equal for both hemispheres. If you look at a specific short enough time span, it may appear to favor one hemisphere over another, but the eclipse geometry is symmetrical. There are times that a total eclipse vs. an annular eclipse will favor one hemisphere over another because the distance of the earth from the sun varies, but over any reasonable time scale this will all average out.
Kurt
Re:Mars' not Mar's (Score:4, Interesting)
Actually, it does, depending upon whose style manual you are using. In some style manuals, proper names ending with a single "s" take the possessive as "s'" and not "s's" for reasons of euphony; but in all style manuals, proper names ending with a double "ss" take the possessive as "ss's."