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This image was taken by Mastcam: Left (MAST_LEFT) onboard NASA's Mars rover Curiosity on Sol 37 (2012-09-13 05:15:28 UTC) .
Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Malin Space Science Systems
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NASA's Curiosity rover has caught sight of its first solar eclipse from the surface of Mars — a slight bite taken out of the sun by the Martian moon Phobos, as seen from the rover's vantage point in Gale Crater on Thursday.
Curiosity's Mastcam imaging system captured this image of the partial mini-eclipse through a neutral density filter that reduced the sunlight to a thousandth of its natural intensity. After all, you wouldn't want Curiosity to blow out its camera on Mars, any more than you would want to damage your own eyes by staring at the sun without eclipse-viewing glasses. The bright spots in the darkness surrounding the sun may look like stars, but Keri Bean, a member of Curiosity's team at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, told me they're just "hot pixels" — flaws in the raw image data.
The rover was programmed to take hundreds of high-resolution images during the transit, and eventually they could be transmitted and assembled into Curiosity's first eclipse movie. But that may take a while, due to the limited data-transmission bandwidth and the $2.5 billion mission's other priorities. Meanwhile, Curiosity has two more opportunities over the next couple of days to watch solar transits by Phobos and Mars' smaller moon, Deimos.
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Aufnahmen von Sol 38
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This image was taken by Navcam: Left A (NAV_LEFT_A) onboard NASA's Mars rover Curiosity on Sol 38 (2012-09-14 05:15:28 UTC) .
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Sol 38 (Sept. 13, 2012) was destined to be a driving day for NASA's latest edition to the Martian landscape. Curiosity perambulated over 105 feet (32 meters) of unpaved Gale Crater during yesterday's drive. The rover's odometer now clocks in at 466 feet (142 meters) covered since the landing on Aug. 5.
The sol's activities also included pre- and post-drive imaging of the road ahead by both Mastcam and Hazcam, and science measurements from the DAN and REMS instruments.
In addition, Curiosity's science instruments performed observations and measurements, including Mastcam observations of the Martian moon Phobos passing in front of the sun.
Curiosity continues to work in good health. Sol 38, in Mars local mean solar time at Gale Crater, ended at 8:34 a.m. on Sept. 14, PDT.
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Aufnahmen von Sol 39
This image was taken by Rear Hazcam: Right A (RHAZ_RIGHT_A) onboard NASA's Mars rover Curiosity on Sol 39 (2012-09-15 05:25:43 UTC) .
Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
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This image was taken by Mastcam: Right (MAST_RIGHT) onboard NASA's Mars rover Curiosity on Sol 39 (2012-09-15 03:25:15 UTC) .
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Aufnahmen von Sol 40
This image was taken by Navcam: Right A (NAV_RIGHT_A) onboard NASA's Mars rover Curiosity on Sol 40 (2012-09-16 07:08:22 UTC) .
Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
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This image was taken by Navcam: Right A (NAV_RIGHT_A) onboard NASA's Mars rover Curiosity on Sol 40 (2012-09-16 07:18:17 UTC) .
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This image was taken by Navcam: Left A (NAV_LEFT_A) onboard NASA's Mars rover Curiosity on Sol 40 (2012-09-16 07:10:21 UTC) .
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This image was taken by Front Hazcam: Right A (FHAZ_RIGHT_A) onboard NASA's Mars rover Curiosity on Sol 40 (2012-09-16 07:07:01 UTC) .
Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech