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Rover ‘Curiosity’ Snaps Photos of Eclipse on Mars

Sep. 19, 2012 9:53pm Jason Howerton

Curiosity Snaps Photos of Eclipse Season on Mars

In this Thursday, Sept. 13, 2012 photo made available by NASA, the Martian moon Phobos grazes the sun's disk as seen by the Curiosity rover. Mars has two moons moving fast around the red planet, making eclipses more common than on Earth. (Credit: AP)

WASHINGTON (AP) — On Mars, a partial eclipse of the sun isn’t quite as rare as on Earth. So NASA’s Mars Curiosity rover is snapping hundreds of pictures of the spectacle for the folks back home to ooh and aah over.

Two moons zip around the red planet and they’re closer and faster than our lumbering moon, so eclipses are more common. Scientists say there’s even somewhat of an eclipse season on Mars, and it’s that time of year when those Martian moons take turns taking bites of the sun.

Curiosity turned its cameras skyward to watch the action in three different eclipses, starting last week and continuing Wednesday, when a moon partially slipped between Mars and the sun.

The rover has been beaming back a stream of photos of the Martian landscape since landing near the equator last month.

Texas A&M University scientist Mark Lemmon said the eclipse pictures will help scientists track the fate of the larger Martian moon, Phobos, which is slowing down in its orbit around Mars. In 10 to 15 million years, Phobos will get so close to Mars it will break up and crash into the planet.

These moons aren’t mere curiosity factors. They get so close to Mars that “they change Mars’ shape ever so slightly” with their pull, Lemmon said.

Past rovers have taken pictures of solar eclipses from Mars, but not with such good cameras that take high resolution photos and so many shots that it produces a movie of sorts, Lemmon said.

And now that Curiosity has gazed skyward, it’s time for the Mini Cooper-sized spacecraft to focus on the ground. On Friday, Curiosity will test its first rock with a laser and other chemical testing kits on the end of its robotic arm.

Its first target is a pyramid-shaped dark rock, about 10 inches tall and 16 inches wide at the base. Two of the arm’s chemical-sniffing devices will snuggle up against the rock – named for Jake Matijevic, a Mars rover engineer who died recently – so scientists can figure out what it is made of.

This Wednesday, Sept. 19, 2012 photo provided by NASA shows a rock about 8 feet (2.5 meters) in front of the Curiosity rover on Mars. The rock is about 10 inches (25 centimeters) tall and 16 inches (40 centimeters) wide. The team has assessed it as a suitable target for the first use of Curiosity's contact instruments on a rock, and named it after the late Jacob Matijevic, who was the surface operations systems chief engineer for the Mars Science Laboratory Project and the project's Curiosity rover., who was the surface operations systems chief engineer for the Mars Science Laboratory Project and the project's Curiosity rover. He was also a leading engineer for all of the previous NASA Mars rovers: Sojourner, Spirit and Opportunity. Curiosity's contact instruments are on a turret at the end of the rover's arm. They are the Alpha Particle X-Ray Spectrometer for reading a target's elemental composition and the Mars Hand Lens Imager for close-up imaging. (Credit: AP)

“It’s just a cool looking rock sitting out there on the plains,” said Mars Science Laboratory scientist John Grotzinger. But it’s not that unusual and seems similar to rocks past rovers have tested before. That makes it a good start for the rover’s testing equipment.

It’s the type of rock that is scattered all over Mars probably blown out of a crater when it was hit by an asteroid or something, Grotzinger said.

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Comments (31)

carrie555
Posted on September 20, 2012 at 8:47pm
Hey, thanks for the feedback to all. I guess I was just taking out my frustration and was looking for someone or something to blame this financial mess we’re in, on. I do know a lot of good has come from our space program, that is true. Really, I’m just as curious as the next guy or gal about what’s up there, it’s cool to look at. God probably just smiles down on us and enjoys the fact that we appreciate his creation. What I should have attacked was, the stimulous money that our president passed and all of the waste that occured there. Why not give some back to hard working Americans, let us decide where we need it most. Less taxes and more take home pay. And thank you BUDZY1911 for sharing the budget breakdown with me, I can appreciate seeing exactly where all of the money is going and really, not as much as I thought towards the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. Thanks again.

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The_Cabrito_Goat
Posted on September 20, 2012 at 9:49am
Too much radiation on Mars for my liking….the planet doesn’t have a molten core, and so it doesn’t have a proper magnetosphere like Earth. Even if we terraform the atmosphere, we will still need exosuits for radiation.

I like Earth better, the one God fine-tuned for us. Thanks dad

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- Silvertruth
  Posted on September 20, 2012 at 10:49am
  Mars lacks the gravity necessary for a proper earth-like atmosphere so ‘terraforming’ would be highly limited in it’s ultimate expression. You’d have remain in enclosed domiciles and growing food would be the biggest challenge. With our current technology level, it would be akin to trying to live in the Antarctic in the late 1800′s, possible but not easy.
  With that in mind though, we do need to colonize the planet, if anything to get all the eggs out of the same basket. We are only one asteroid strike from joining the Dinosaurs, well, at least having the population culled dramatically. Having a backup bunch of hardened explorers to come home and save our bacon wouldn’t be a bad thing.
  
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Shiroi Raion
Posted on September 20, 2012 at 4:02am
Very cool photos. I never would have imagined I’d ever get to see this. Phobos (fear) and Deimos (terror) are Mars’ two moons. They are appropriately named for a planet named after the god of war.
I didn’t know Phobos was slowing down and will eventually crash into Mars though. That’s an interesting bit of trivia.
Too bad we can’t make anything sturdy enough to land on Venus. Venus is an interesting planet. Sulfuric acid rain, extreme heat, crushing pressure… two crafts were able to land and snap two photos each before they melted.

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- bccrane
  Posted on September 20, 2012 at 9:00am
  Everyone thinks that you need to land on the surface of Venus, no you don’t. Approx. 30-70 km above the surface the weather is a temperate 70 F, a constant wind, you’re at the upper limit of the CO2 layer, you can process O2 and water from the atmosphere. So with a kite like system where you can drag a planer board into the CO2 layer you could glide indefinitly and with the constant wind power yourself indefinitely, you have 150 days of sunlight (downside 150 days dark unless you reposition every so often) lots of chance for photosynthesis for food, so in a way Venus would be a better place to colonize.
  
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- cantstandlibs
  Posted on September 20, 2012 at 2:59pm
  Many orbiting bodies are slowing down and will eventually crash into the body they are orbiting. Various forces create a loss of energy. Tides are one. Even fluctuations in the crust is a type of tide that saps energy.
  
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carrie555
Posted on September 20, 2012 at 1:38am
I don’t know, that picture of “the eclipse” looks a lot like a vanilla wafer cookie, that someone took a bite out of. :o Hmmmmmmmmmm! I mean, just think of all the money they spend on their beloved space endeavors, what if they poured that money into helping our economy instead.

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- SlyBriFry
  Posted on September 20, 2012 at 7:12am
  We would still have a bad economy, with the side benefit of no space exploration. The one and only thing that is needed to help our economy is freedom.
  
  Report this comment
- wuggly ump
  Posted on September 20, 2012 at 7:19am
  There are so many things we use everyday that came from the space program. All of them now made by private industry giving citizens jobs.
  
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- The_Pointy_End
  Posted on September 20, 2012 at 8:54am
  Small business and free markets help the economy ….not bailouts! You cannot and will not solve the economy long term by throwing money at it.
  
  Report this comment
- budzy1911
  Posted on September 20, 2012 at 9:46am
  Carrie,
  
  This is always a common statement that we should not spend money on NASA but instead spend it on the poor. Do you know that we have spent over $15 trillion on the ‘war on poverty’ without any results? Below is a breakdown of the US budget. Everyone of the remaining agencies does something that either directly helps people or say for the National Science Foundation – spends money on cancer research. So if you took NASA’s $18.7 billion and add it to the $2.4 trillion do you really believe all of our problems would be solved? Medicaid has triple NASA’s budget in fraud alone.
  
  We can live in a cave Carrie and quake at the site of that big orange globe or throw off the tethers and move beyond our earthly bonds to explore the heavens.
  
  ‘The learned is happy, nature to explore; The fool is happy, that he knows no more’ – Alexander Pope
  
  SEE NEXT POST FOR BUDGET BREAKDOWN
  
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- budzy1911
  Posted on September 20, 2012 at 9:47am
  $695 billion – Social Security
  $571 billion – Unemployment/Welfare/Other mandatory spending
  $453 billion – Medicare
  $290 billion – Medicaid
  $78.7 billion – Department of Health and Human Services
  $72.5 billion – Department of Transportation
  $52.5 billion – Department of Veterans Affairs
  $51.7 billion – Department of State and Other International Programs
  $47.5 billion – Department of Housing and Urban Development
  $46.7 billion – Department of Education
  $26.0 billion – Department of Agriculture
  $13.8 billion – Department of Commerce
  $13.3 billion – Department of Labor
  $12.0 billion – Department of the Interior
  $10.5 billion – Environmental Protection Agency
  $9.7 billion – Social Security Administration
  $7.0 billion – National Science Foundation
  $5.1 billion – Corps of Engineers
  $5.0 billion – National Infrastructure Bank
  $1.1 billion – Corporation for National and Community Service
  
  $2.4621 Trillion Dollar Total
  
  $18.7 billion – National Aeronautics and Space Administration
  
  NASA’s budget is 0.0076 of the total federal budget excluding interest and Defense
  
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asybot12
Posted on September 19, 2012 at 11:54pm
Look very closely at the shadows in the left side of the picture, the shadows on the smaller pebbles align with the “pyramid ” rock but if you look to the right hand side of the “pyramid” rock the shadows are on the wrong side ( in front instead of behind ) of the pebbles in almost a quarter of the picture!.

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- GodHatesFigs
  Posted on September 20, 2012 at 1:10am
  You’re in to something
  
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- bccrane
  Posted on September 20, 2012 at 9:05am
  You need to look closely again and remember the camera’s perspective, the sunlight is from above slightly behind and to the left, so the shadows to the right are away and behind the objects unable to be seen from the camera but you can see the slight shadow towards the camera is the same to the right, left, and just under the front side of the pyramid.
  
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- budzy1911
  Posted on September 20, 2012 at 10:02am
  You also know that many of the images are composites of different images that may have been taken at different times and pieced together.
  
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- cdison21
  Posted on September 20, 2012 at 11:28am
  Asybot, put down your bong.
  
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TelepromoterNChief
Posted on September 19, 2012 at 11:43pm
Just rocks.
Joy.
You didn’t build that.

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llotus
Posted on September 19, 2012 at 11:35pm
Is that a pyramid on mars? I dont give a flyin crap about mars. They used to in ……I guess you could call it…..the old days, give you something to look forward to and now you wake and they have landed on mars. Its about equal to payin that guy 1.9 million to study ants on a small island off of east africa with stimulous money. The only thing that got stimulated was the ants and the guy that got the money. If that isn`t a true story it`s not my fault, blame it on Bush if it isn`t true. He`s blamed for everything else. Sorry about that W. I think he`s a real gentlman. Not a whole lot of em around now days. At least not in my neck of the woods. Too worried about other things than to get excited about mars. Lotus.

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asybot12
Posted on September 19, 2012 at 11:31pm
I am 62 years old and have been a fan (space nut) of any space program . All of them! The USA, USSR, China the ESA, Japan and the privates of today. BUT (you knew that was coming!) the 2 asteroids going around Mars are not moons and the “bite or eclipse” they took out of the sun is not correct (IT IS WAY TOO BIG) and the rock in front of the Rover is placed. Believe me i am a lot less impressed with this program since I saw these pictures. I also spend some time on the NASA web site about this program and now I am even less convinced!

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- Anonymous T. Irrelevant
  Posted on September 20, 2012 at 11:08am
  They should have said that Mars is taking a bite out of the “moon.”
  By “placed” do you imply that Curiosity is not on Mars and someone placed it, or that Curiosity placed the rock out in the open? Unless Mars is rich in any minerals we need, I don’t know why we would want to colonize there.
  
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randy
Posted on September 19, 2012 at 11:22pm
That rock looks jut like a pyramid!
I knew life on earth came from Mars! :)

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sparkyrules
Posted on September 19, 2012 at 10:40pm
I don’t care who the rock was named after,from the Earth.Jacob Matijevic.After billions of dollars,I would like to know if Mars has ever supported life.Or still does.I just want NASA to be upfront and not treat We the People who PAID for this mission,like dummies.
We should have 24 hr access to any and all information.That includes live video and pictures.USA

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- noland
  Posted on September 19, 2012 at 11:01pm
  You mean like the dummies that voted for CHANGE!
  
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- budzy1911
  Posted on September 20, 2012 at 10:30am
  Sparky – you do know they are not using live video on the surface – right?
  
  These are stills that are uploaded to the Mars orbiter that uses its antenna to broadcast those back to earth. The whole system doesn’t have enough bandwidth to brodcast video.
  
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rochrealtor
Posted on September 19, 2012 at 10:23pm
Excellent. let’s see… 10 pictures. 100 billion investment…Wow those are some expensive pictures. Save them boy’s don’t throw “um” out! When were the Muslim’s supposed to take over the program? Thank God we have a President so committed to the ventures in space!

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- Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra
  Posted on September 19, 2012 at 10:33pm
  I actually cost about 1 billion dollars, most of it came from private investors. But I bet we got more jobs out of the 1 billion dollars than the 1 trillion spent by the Govt in stimulas.
  
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Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra
Posted on September 19, 2012 at 9:58pm
SOOOO COOOOOL. An Eclipse, from another planet. How can anybody not get giddy about that. Can anyone remember how exciting it was when Viking 1 and 2 landed. I really thought we would have a man on Mars by 2000. Now I just hope we can get a man back in orbit by 2014.

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- politicianssuck
  Posted on September 19, 2012 at 10:24pm
  Agreed! It is hard to believe that we are taking pictures from the surface of another planet.
  
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- Wool-Free Vision
  Posted on September 19, 2012 at 10:26pm
  A new press statement from NASA reads:
  
  “We at NASA would like to thank all the great Muslim minds who helped inspire this Martian eclipse via Islam’s continued efforts to spread darkness where there would otherwise be light. Keep up the good work, you guys (but not gals, you Muslim gals had best keep your mouths shut and eyes on the ground if you know what’s good for you).”
  
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Snowleopard {gallery of cat folks}
Posted on September 19, 2012 at 9:57pm
Neat.

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