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PIA05518: Martian Eclipses: Deimos and Phobos
The panoramic camera on NASA's Opportunity combines the first photographs of solar eclipses by Mars' two moons, Deimos and Phobos. Deimos appears as a speck in front of the Sun and Phobos grazes its edge.
 Target Name:  Sol (our sun)
 Mission:  Mars Exploration Rover (MER) 
 Spacecraft:  Opportunity
 Instrument:  Panoramic Camera 
 Product Size:  399 x 198 pixels (w x h) 
 Produced By:  Cornell University 
 Full-Res TIFF:  PIA05518.tif (44.62 kB)
 Full-Res JPEG:  PIA05518.jpg (10.21 kB)  

Click on the image above to download a moderately sized image in JPEG format (possibly reduced in size from original)

Original Caption Released with Image:

figure 1 for PIA05518

figure 2 for PIA05518

figure 4 for PIA05518
Deimos		figure 3 for PIA05518
Phobos

This panel combines the first photographs of solar eclipses by Mars' two moons. The panoramic camera on NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity captured the images as the first in a planned series of eclipse observations by Opportunity and Spirit.

The Deimos image was taken at 03:04 Universal Time on March 4, 2004. This irregularly shaped moon is only 15 kilometers (9 miles) across in its longest dimension. It appears as just a speck in front of the disc of the Sun. The Phobos image was taken as that moon grazed the edge of the solar disc at 02:46 Universal Time on March 7, 2004. Phobos is 27 kilometers (17 miles) in its longest dimension. Its apparent size relative to Deimos is even greater because it orbits much closer to Mars' surface than Deimos does.

Image Credit:
NASA/JPL/Cornell

Image Addition Date:
2004-03-08