VMC first: the shadow of Phobos!

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! 

1. Posted by: Apostolos Christou • VMC/MEX and Phobos' shadow • reply
   02-02-2010 • 23:18:37

   Congratulations on capturing this amazing sequence.

   I recall that, on Beagle 2, we were hoping to capture lightcurves of eclipses of the Sun by Phobos and wrote software to estimate the position of the lander from those data; this, sadly, never came to pass.

   I also recall a similar sequence of images from one of the Viking Orbiters (eg see http://history.nasa.gov/SP-441/ch9.htm). One of the spectacles future astronauts orbiting Mars will have the opportunity to witness..

2. Posted by: clark ken • telescopio hubble • reply
   02-02-2010 • 18:10:13

   tal vez con este si pueda observar mejor,sinembargo si es un satelite estelar debe ser muy pequeño,podria incluso ser una especie de meteoro que entro en la orbita marciana

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