ESA
MEX Spacecraft Operations
For the first-time ever, VMC has imaged what we believe to be the shadow of Mars' moon Phobos crossing the surface of Mars. The shadow cast by Phobos as it passes between the Sun and Mars was photographed by VMC on 30 January, just as Mars Express approaches an intensive scientific observation campaign of Phobos (click here for more details).
These events (called Phobos Transits) are similar to a solar eclipse on Earth but happen much more frequently. The shadow cast by the tiny moon has been seen by several spacecraft before, including by HRSC on Mars Express (see here), but such a long sequence of images showing the shadow crossing the planet is very rare.
The animation on the right shows the path of the moon's shadow across the surface but as always with VMC we want your input! We'd like to publish a special post on this observation and we want to publish your thoughts and work on this: Can you create a better animation? Can you bring out new details in the images? How fast is the shadow moving? How big is the shadow? Can you confirm it is actually Phobos? Get in touch and let us know, for more general details see 'Help us with VMC', we look forward to your submissions! --Thomas
Update: Check out this post by Emily Lakdawalla on the Planetary Society Blog: she's already put together a fantastic animation of the shadow moving across the surface of the planet!
