#AstroMiniBR: We saw a solar eclipse on Mars!

Every Saturday, TecMundo and #AstroMiniBR brings together five relevant and entertaining astronomical curiosities produced by the world’s collaborators. profile on twitter to spread the knowledge of this science, which is the oldest!

#1: The Solar System’s Cheese Moon

The fame of the cheese-made Moon, Earth’s only natural satellite, certainly preceded humanity’s ability to see high-resolution photos of Io, one of Jupiter’s largest moons and one of four moons discovered by Galileo in the early 17th century.

Its name is a reference to mythology, as are the numerous planets and moons in the Solar System: Io was a mortal who turned into a cow during a dispute between the Greek god Zeus (Jupiter in Roman mythology) and his wife Hera (Juno for Juno). Romans). Io is the most active celestial body in the Solar System: there are hundreds of volcanoes on its surface, some of which erupt violently, with jets of lava reaching tens of kilometers high.

Only slightly larger than our Moon, Io is the third largest of Jupiter’s moons and the fifth in terms of distance from the planet. With the strong pull of Jupiter’s gravity, Io is in a “ring rope” between two neighboring moons, Europa and Ganymede, orbiting the farthest from Jupiter, the smaller tugs of its neighbors. Because of these tugs, Io’s orbit takes on a rather unsettled and irregularly elliptical shape. Because of this, its distance from Jupiter varies greatly, subjecting it to enormous tidal forces.

#2: A solar eclipse on Mars

As human beings, we are privileged to accompany solar eclipses from the earth’s surface. Records of these dazzling celestial events, where the Moon blocked sunlight from reaching our planet, are part of a collection accessible to all, even those who have never seen it alive.

But is Earth the only world in the Solar System to experience this amazing phenomenon? Answer is no. Total solar eclipses can happen on other planets, but total solar eclipses only occur in those with moons large enough to cover the solar disk from the planet’s perspective and orbiting the planet in the same plane as the Sun.

That’s not the case on planet Mars: although it has two moons, Phobos and Deimos, their relative sizes are too small to completely cover the Sun in perspective, meaning there are only partial solar eclipses there. But that doesn’t make the event any less impressive! The recording above shows a partial eclipse observed by the Perseverance rover currently on the Martian surface!

#3: How many movements does the world have?

According to basic science, this question has a simple answer: two movements, rotation and translation. However, the phenomenon of stellar motion is more complex than that, and Earth is no different. The movements performed by our planet can be classified as 4 major and 10 minor movements.

The 4 main movements are: rotation, translation, and the Milky Way and its two equivalents. Secondary motions: tidal motion, change in orbital eccentricity, perihelion shift, precession of equinoxes, nutation, ecliptic obliquity, motion due to planetary perturbations, spiral motion, motion of the Earth-Moon center of mass and finally motion around the center of mass of the Solar System.

#4: Anniversary of the Hubble Space Telescope

The Hubble Space Telescope (HST) left Earth on April 24, 1990 to open the windows of the Universe to humanity. Every year, the week following that date, the team in charge of the telescope releases a souvenir photo that reminds us of that date. the cosmic wonders we come to see through the lens of

The next week, as HST turns 32, the published photo is of HCG 40, the above group of interacting galaxies. This small group of galaxies includes three spiral galaxies, an elliptical galaxy, and a lenticular galaxy. In about a billion years these galaxies will collide and merge to form a giant elliptical galaxy.

#5: Houston, we have a problem

The famous Apollo 13 mission was the seventh manned portion of NASA’s Apollo space program and the third mission to land on the Moon since Apollo 11, which was the first to complete it.

The spacecraft was launched from Kennedy Space Center on April 11, 1970, but the landing mission was aborted when an oxygen tank in the service module failed two days after the mission.

The accident sparked an astonishing race to save the lives of 3 American astronauts in space. Fortunately, the minds of the astronauts and the joint collaboration of a few engineers and scientists on the ground made the module’s return successful and brought everyone back to Earth alive.