Solar eclipse on Mars- photo

Technically, this is called a transit – when a much smaller body passes in front of a larger one. Usually, there’s some science that can come from this; the timing of the transit gives a better orbit for the moon (since the rover’s location on the surface is precisely known), and so on. In this case, though, we study Phobos with other orbiting spacecraft, so I’d think its orbit and position are extremely well determined.




Phobos orbits Mars pretty close in, just about 6000 km (3600 miles) above the surface of Mars – compare that to the 400,000 km distance from the Earth to the Moon! Phobos is so close that it transits the Sun pretty much every day for some location on Mars, making this something of a less-than-rare event. It’ll only be a year before it happens again at Curiosity’s location.


http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2012/09/15/a-solar-eclipse-from-mars/