{"id":64377,"date":"2026-08-19T14:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-08-19T14:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hoo.central12.com\/fugic\/?guid=512da9f5314666db91d230d72a2a9249"},"modified":"2026-08-19T17:32:53","modified_gmt":"2026-08-19T17:32:53","slug":"perseverance-rover-watchs-alien-solar-eclipse-on-mars-space-photo-of-the-day-for-aug-19-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hoo.central12.com\/fugic\/2026\/08\/19\/perseverance-rover-watchs-alien-solar-eclipse-on-mars-space-photo-of-the-day-for-aug-19-2026\/","title":{"rendered":"Perseverance rover watches alien solar eclipse on Mars | Space photo of the day for Aug. 19, 2026"},"content":{"rendered":"\n \n
\n

\"A<\/p><\/div><\/div>

NASA's Perseverance Mars rover saw a solar eclipse from the Martian surface. <\/span>(Image credit: NASA\/JPL-Caltech\/ASU)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>

People around the world enjoyed stellar views with last week's total solar eclipse. <\/p>

And the day after we looked up to see the moon obscuring out sun, NASA's Perseverance<\/u> <\/a>Mars<\/u><\/a> rover looked up to see its own Martian solar eclipse. <\/p>

What is it? <\/h2>

Solar eclipses<\/u><\/a> aren't unique to Earth<\/u><\/a>. In theory, any planet with at least one orbiting moon<\/u><\/a> would have times where that moon might eclipse some part of its sun to anyone looking up from the planet's surface. <\/p>

On Aug. 13, 2026, one day after Earth's total solar eclipse<\/u><\/a> in which our moon temporarily blocked out our sun for skywatchers in some locations, Mars saw its own solar eclipse<\/u><\/a>.<\/u><\/p>

Looking up with its left Mastcam-Z camera, Perseverance snapped this image of one of Mars' two moons, Phobos<\/u><\/a> and Deimos<\/u><\/a>, partially eclipsing the sun. This appears to be Phobos \u2014 the larger of the pair \u2014 eclipsing the sun<\/u><\/a>. <\/p>

Why is it incredible? <\/h2>

So far, we humans have only directly had vantage points on Earth<\/u><\/a>, in Earth orbit and on the moon. We have not yet landed humans on Mars, and it remains unclear how long it might be before that happens. <\/p>

But robotic explorers like Perseverance allow us to travel where we can't go ourselves. Such travelers have taken us into interstellar space and all throughout our solar system<\/u><\/a>. From Saturn<\/u><\/a>'s rings to Neptune<\/u><\/a>'s distant, icy neighborhood, robotic probes have allowed humanity's reach to stretch far through the cosmos. <\/p>

And thanks to Perseverance and its two \"eyes,\" the two Mastcam-Z cameras located high on its mast, we can travel right to the surface of Mars, look up and see an alien solar eclipse. What an amazing thing that is.<\/p>\n <\/article>\n \n ","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What a view.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":849,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[404,437,477],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-64377","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-astronomy","category-mars","category-solar-system"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hoo.central12.com\/fugic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64377"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hoo.central12.com\/fugic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hoo.central12.com\/fugic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hoo.central12.com\/fugic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/849"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hoo.central12.com\/fugic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=64377"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/hoo.central12.com\/fugic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64377\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":64711,"href":"https:\/\/hoo.central12.com\/fugic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64377\/revisions\/64711"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hoo.central12.com\/fugic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=64377"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hoo.central12.com\/fugic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=64377"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hoo.central12.com\/fugic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=64377"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}