 Greetings and welcome to the Astronomy Picture of the Day podcast. Today's picture for February 26th of 2024 is titled Martian Moon Eclipse's Martian Moon. So what do we see here? Well, here is a set of images put together in a short video clip that we're going to take a look at, and we're just going to put it on repeat so you can see it as I discuss it a little bit. So what we're seeing is the two Martian moons, Phobos and Deimos. The larger moon is Phobos, and that's the one you will see in the front a little bit closer in this image. The back one is Deimos. Now as they orbit around Mars, it is possible for the one, the larger moon, to pass in front of the smaller moon and to block it out for a short period of time. And that's what you're seeing here in this short little clip. We watch as Phobos passes in front of Deimos and blocks out the light from it. We cannot see it for a period of time. Now when this happens with our sun, when the moon passes in front of our sun, we call that an eclipse, so this is also a type of eclipse that we can see when one object passes in front of another. So an eclipse is not something confined to Earth. We actually know of eclipses of the moons of Jupiter, which can actually be used one way, early way to measure the speed of light by timing those eclipses. So anytime when two things pass right in front of one another, we can call that an eclipse. Now sometimes depending on the positioning and what we're talking about, we sometimes call that an occultation as well in one thing passing in front of another in the sky. Now Mars's moons are quite unusual. In fact, they both orbit rather close to Mars, and in fact much closer than other moons in the solar system. And they may well be asteroids captured from the asteroid belt, which exists between Mars and Jupiter. And interestingly, since they orbit so close to Mars, they actually orbit faster than Mars rotates, meaning that they would appear to go backwards. So for example, our moon appears to rise in the east and set in the west. On the other hand, these moons both rise in the west and set in the east because of their very fast motion through their orbits. Now this was imaged by the Mars Express, which is a spacecraft which is also in orbit on Mars. Now you could also see it from the Martian surface, but it would be a little bit harder to see there and would be a little bit different. Now the eclipse from the ground of Mars would actually be a rare event because you would have to be in exactly the right positioning to have the shadow cast on you. So you'd have to be in exactly the right spot, just as you'd have to be exactly in the right spot on Earth in order to be able to see a solar eclipse. So you would need the same kind of positioning if this were to occur on Mars and it can occur from the Martian surface as well. So that was our picture of the day for February 26th of 2024. It was titled Martian Moon Eclipse's Martian Moon. We'll be back again tomorrow for the next picture. So until then, have a great day everyone, and I will see you in class.