WORLD NEWS
Earth vanished from Mars behind Phobos in a one-pixel hide-and-seek
Perseverance captured Earth disappearing and reappearing behind the Martian moon Phobos. From 314 million kilometers away, Earth was a single bright pixel.
Earth did not physically vanish. Phobos completely blocked it along the rover’s line of sight in an event called an occultation.
What does the sequence show?
On the Martian evening of July 2, 2026, Mastcam-Z took nine images. A bright Earth dot and dark crescent Phobos moved toward each other and overlapped.
Why is it a first?
It is humanity’s first image from another planet’s surface of Earth disappearing behind another object, a distant self-portrait taken from Mars.
Is Phobos larger than Earth?
Phobos is only about 27 kilometers wide. It looked larger because it was about 7,800 kilometers from Mars, while Earth was 314 million kilometers away.
Why was it hard to catch?
Phobos crosses the Martian sky three times daily, but exact alignment with Earth is rare. The team planned the geometry and still needed some luck.
Official primary sources
Primary source: NASA/JPL official event explanation