Mars rover watches Earth disappear in the sky
Earth appeared as a tiny dot in the Martian sky before briefly disappearing behind Phobos in a rare view captured by NASA’s Perseverance rover.
NASA’s Psyche spacecraft flew past Mars and revealed breathtaking views of Mars’ surface.
NASA’s Perseverance rover recently watched Earth disappear behind one of Mars’ moons, capturing a first-of-its-kind view from the surface of another planet.
The images, taken by the rover on July 2, show Earth as a tiny point of light in the Martian sky as Phobos, the larger of Mars’ two moons, crosses in front of it. NASA said this is the first time humanity has captured Earth vanishing behind an object from the surface of another planet.
“The composite image makes for a unique Earth self-portrait, taken from the surface of another planet, with a Phobos photobomb,” said Justin Maki, the Mastcam-Z deputy principal investigator and imaging scientist for Perseverance at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California.
This annotated composite of nine images taken by Perseverance on July 2, 2026, shows Earth passing behind the Martian moon Phobos. The images in the inset were captured from the same rectangular patch of sky outlined in black. (NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU/MSSS/SSI)
Astronomers call this type of event an occultation, which happens when one object completely blocks another from view from the observer’s perspective.
Phobos is a lumpy, potato-shaped moon about 17 miles across at its widest point and orbits about 4,850 miles from Mars. Earth, meanwhile, was about 195 million miles away at the time and appeared as a pixel-sized dot in the Martian sky.
This animation, consisting of seven images of Earth passing behind the Martian moon Phobos, was created from data taken on July 2, 2026. The colors were edited to remove extraneous light and to enhance detail. (NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU/MSSS/SSI)
The observation took planning.
“Phobos crosses the Martian sky three times a day, and Earth is visible for months at a stretch, but catching one directly behind the other takes planning and a little luck,” said Mark Lemmon, a Mastcam-Z co-investigator at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colorado, who planned the observation and assembled the composite.
Perseverance has also captured solar eclipses from Mars, although its moons do not appear large enough in the Martian sky to completely block out the sun.
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