Gmail is email thats intuitive, efficient, and useful.GB of storage, less spam, and mobile access.Four Breathtaking Solar Eclipses You Can See From Other Planets.On August 2. 1st, millions of Earthlings will gather to watch as a total solar eclipse sweeps across the centerline of the United States over the course of 9.For many, itll be once in a life time spectacle.But if you had a spacecraft on hand, you wouldnt need to wait decades for the next total solar eclipse to arrive at a town near youyou could simply jet off to Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, or even Pluto.Thats because theres a veritable zoo of solar eclipses occurring all across our solar system, all the time.To be fair, none of these extraterrestrial eclipses is quite like the total solar eclipse here on Earth, where a quirk of celestial geometry causes the Moon to stack perfectly over the Sun, leaving a fiery ring of coronal jets to illuminate the sky.Some satellites, like Mars moon Phobos, are too small to engulf the Sun from the perspective of an observer on the planet, resulting in what astronomers call a transit.In other cases, like that of Saturns moon Titan, the angular size of the satellite in the sky is far greater than that of the Sun, resulting in a solar occultation.Get the latest international news and world events from Asia, Europe, the Middle East, and more.See world news photos and videos at ABCNews.Installing Solar Panels In Nigeria This Python' title='Installing Solar Panels In Nigeria This Python' />But thats just the basicseclipses, it turns out, come in all shapes and sizes, and studying them can tell us a lot about our cosmic neighborhood. How To Install Brasero In Linux . Tiny transits at Mars.For most other planets, we have to imagine what a solar eclipse would look like from the surface or, in the case of a gas giant, the cloud tops.But when it comes to Mars, weve actually seen quite a few.In 2. 00. 4, NASAs Spirit and Opportunity rovers captured six solar transits events from the surface of Marsfour involving the potato shaped moon Phobos, another two starring the even runtier satellite Deimos.They were, according to a paper published in Nature the following year, the first direct images of satellites transiting the Sun from the surface of another planet.Phobos eclipses had been observed indirectly even earlier, in data collected by NASAs Viking lander and Soviet led missions to Mars.According to Mark Lemmon, an astronomer at Texas A M University and co investigator on the Spirit and Opportunity rovers, early solar eclipse observations helped NASA refine the positions of Mars moons in the sky.Despite observing Phobos and Deimos for 1.Earth, theyre small and far away, Lemmon told Gizmodo.Before NASAs rovers landed, the uncertainty about where Phobos would be at any given time was about as big as Phobos.Once eclipse observations had improved the orbits of the two moons, the European Space Agencys Mars Express Orbiter was able to point its camera accurately enough to capture high res images of both, Lemmon said.Eclipse watching on Mars has only gotten better, especially since NASAs Curiosity rover landed in Gale Crater in August 2.Just look at this footage Curiosity captured in 2.Phobos racing across the Sun, transforming our beloved star into an eerie cyclops monster over the course of 3.I think thats the best shot of an eclipse on Mars we have, Lemmon said of the Curiosity video, adding that the rover has continued to make solar eclipse observations since, including the eclipse shown below, which occurred this past May.Even though Spirit and Opportunity refined the positions of Mars moons more than a decade ago, theres still plenty we can learn by watching their transits.Even now, while theres no missing where Phobos and Deimos are, their orbits are changing all the time due to the push and pull of gravity, from Mars, Lemmon explained.In particular, Phobos raises a tiny tide on Marsa slight displacement of the rock surface, which in turn leads to a gravitational pull on Phobos, changing its orbit.Installing Solar Panels In Nigeria This Python' title='Installing Solar Panels In Nigeria This Python' />
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |