Summary
NASA’s Perseverance rover captured Earth passing behind Phobos from the surface of Mars on July 2, 2026. The observation is the first of its kind, showing Earth briefly disappearing behind an object as seen from another planet.
NASA’s Perseverance rover has captured Earth disappearing behind Phobos, one of Mars’ two moons, in an observation made from the surface of Mars. The image sequence was recorded by the rover’s Mastcam-Z camera at about 7 p.m. local solar time on July 2, 2026—the mission’s 1,907th Martian day, or sol.
NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory describes the event as the first time humanity has captured Earth disappearing behind another object from the surface of another planet. In the sequence, Earth appears as a small bright point moving from the upper left toward the lower right, while Phobos crosses in the opposite direction. The two objects meet in the frame and Earth briefly vanishes behind Phobos’ shadowed edge.
A rare alignment seen from Mars
The event is an occultation: one object appears to pass in front of and completely block another from a particular viewing position. In this case, Phobos appeared between Perseverance and Earth.
That is different from an eclipse, which involves one object entering another object’s shadow. It is also different from a transit, in which a smaller-looking object crosses the face of a larger-looking one. Perseverance has previously observed transits of Phobos and Mars’ other moon, Deimos, crossing the Sun as seen from Mars.
The alignment was difficult to capture because the objects move differently across the Martian sky. Phobos crosses the sky roughly three times a day, while Earth remains visible from Mars for months at a time. Getting the two directly aligned from the rover’s location required advance planning and favourable timing.
Earth reduced to a point of light
From Perseverance’s position on the rim of Jezero Crater, Phobos and Earth appeared dramatically different. Phobos is an irregular, potato-shaped moon about 17 miles (27 kilometres) across at its widest. It orbits only about 4,850 miles (7,800 kilometres) from Mars.
Earth was approximately 195 million miles (314 million kilometres) from Mars at the time of the observation. At that distance, the planet appeared in the Mastcam-Z images as a single pixel-sized point of light, while Phobos appeared roughly one-third as wide as Earth’s Moon appears from Earth.
The released material includes an annotated composite of nine images showing Earth’s movement across the frame. NASA also provided a seven-image composite processed to remove extraneous background light and make the event easier to see.
Why the observation matters
The sequence offers a rare view of Earth from another planet while also documenting the geometry of the Martian sky from Perseverance’s fixed location. It turns Earth into the background object in a planetary-scale alignment, with Phobos briefly blocking it from view.
The observation was planned by Mark Lemmon, a Mastcam-Z co-investigator at the Space Science Institute, and acquired by the rover’s Mastcam-Z instrument. Arizona State University leads Mastcam-Z operations in collaboration with Malin Space Science Systems, while NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory manages Perseverance for NASA.
The result is primarily an observational milestone: a carefully timed image sequence showing Earth vanish and reappear behind a Martian moon. It also demonstrates how a rover on another world can use repeated imaging and orbital geometry to record events that are fleeting from the Martian surface.