Perseverance Records 2024 Phobos Transit to Gauge Martian Gravity
Updated
Updated · Futura · Aug 14
Perseverance Records 2024 Phobos Transit to Gauge Martian Gravity
3 articles · Updated · Futura · Aug 14
Summary
NASA said Perseverance captured Phobos crossing the Sun from Jezero Crater on Sept. 30, 2024, adding a new timing point for tracking the moon’s orbit around Mars.
Three daily Phobos orbits let scientists use repeated transit timings to measure how Martian gravity is pulling the moon inward through tidal interactions with the planet.
That orbital decay is gradual but consequential: Phobos is expected eventually to break apart or strike the Martian surface if the inward drift continues.
The observation extends a long eclipse-measurement tradition, applying the same geometry used in historic solar studies to refine models of motion elsewhere in the solar system.
Why are scientists using Martian moon transits and artificial space shadows to solve the enduring mystery of the Sun's dangerously hot corona?
How did a supersonic jet chasing the moon's shadow unlock solar secrets now being replicated by artificial eclipses in space?
Could engineered eclipses from synchronized satellites eventually make natural solar eclipses obsolete for studying the violent solar storms that threaten Earth?