image: NASA-JPL

Watch this fantastic "googly eye" solar eclipse from Mars

by · Boing Boing

NASA's Perseverance rover on Mars captured the below video of a wonderful "googly eye" eclipse as the Martian moon Phobos crossed in front of the sun.

While it appears large in the video, Phobos is around 17 miles across, 157 times smaller than our own Moon.

"Astronomer Asaph Hall named the potato-shaped moon in 1877, after the god of fear and panic in Greek mythology; the word "phobia" comes from Phobos," explains the NAS AJet Propulsion Lab. "He named Mars' other moon Deimos, after Phobos' mythological twin brother.

Previously:
• Lunar eclipse beautifully captured in composite image
• What the solar eclipse looked like from the Moon