Perseverance Captures Earth Vanishing Behind Phobos in a First for Human History
NASA's Perseverance rover has recorded Earth disappearing behind the Martian moon Phobos, capturing our planet as a single point of light that winks out behind the little moon's shadowed edge. It is the first time humanity has photographed Earth being occulted by another object from the surface of a different planet. The image sequence was taken by the rover's Mastcam-Z instrument at about 7 p.m. local solar time on July 2, 2026, the 1,907th Martian day, or sol, of the mission. In the composite
OST Staff · August 5, 2026
NASA's Perseverance rover has recorded Earth disappearing behind the Martian moon Phobos, capturing our planet as a single point of light that winks out behind the little moon's shadowed edge. It is the first time humanity has photographed Earth being occulted by another object from the surface of a different planet.
The image sequence was taken by the rover's Mastcam-Z instrument at about 7 p.m. local solar time on July 2, 2026, the 1,907th Martian day, or sol, of the mission. In the composite, Earth travels from the upper left of the frame toward the lower right while Phobos moves from lower left to upper right, sweeping across its path. In the third frame, the two objects meet and Earth vanishes behind Phobos.
From where Perseverance sits on the rim of Jezero Crater, the two objects could hardly look more different. Phobos, a lumpy, potato-shaped moon about 17 miles, or 27 kilometers, across at its widest, orbits so close to Mars, at 4,850 miles or 7,800 kilometers, that it appears roughly one-third the width of Earth's Moon as seen from our planet. Earth, some 195 million miles, or 314 million kilometers, away at the time, is reduced to a single, pixel-size dot.
"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.
Mark Lemmon, a Mastcam-Z co-investigator at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colorado, planned the observation and assembled the composite of seven images. "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," he said.
Astronomers call the event an occultation, when a larger-appearing body completely blocks the one behind it from the viewer's standpoint. That differs from an eclipse, which occurs when one object moves into the shadow of another, and from a transit, when a smaller-looking object crosses the face of a larger-looking one. Perseverance has observed transits as well, capturing Phobos or Deimos crossing the disk of the Sun as seen from Mars.
The observation offers a genuinely new perspective on Earth's place in the solar system, showing our planet vanish behind a Martian moon from the surface of Mars, a visual that has never existed before in human history.
JPL, managed by Caltech, built and manages operations of the Perseverance rover on behalf of NASA's Science Mission Directorate as part of the Mars Exploration Program. Arizona State University leads operations of the Mastcam-Z instrument, working with Malin Space Science Systems in San Diego on the design, fabrication, testing, and operation of the cameras.