A couple of weeks ago I linked an image and story about the Mars rovers observing a Martian sunset, thinking at the time, "What could be cooler than that!"
Well, I now have my answer: a Martian solar eclipse.
The Mars rover Opportunity took pictures as the Martian moon Deimos passed in front of the sun, looking like a mote of dust as it did so. It's not really what we think of as an "eclipse", since neither of Mars's two moons is large enough to cause totality in an eclipse, although Phobos could eclipse up to half the sun in its own transit sometime in the next few days. The only reason we have total eclipses on Earth is by sheer good fortune: the discs of the Sun and the Moon, observed from Earth's surface, are just about the exact same size. If the Moon were smaller or farther from the Earth, we wouldn't have total eclipses.
The personal blog of author Kelly Sedinger, chronicling the adventures of one overalls-clad wanderer.
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