Before and After Occultation of Deimos by Phobos . photonado

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Before and After Occultation of Deimos by Phobos

These six images from NASA's Mars rover Curiosity show the two moons of Mars moments before (left three) and after (right three) the larger moon, Phobos, occulted Deimos on Aug. 1, 2013. On each side, the top image is earlier in time than the ones beneath it. Curiosity used the telephoto-lens camera of its two-camera Mast Camera (Mastcam) instrument to record this occultation. Malin Space Science Systems, San Diego, built and operates Mastcam. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory manages the Mars Science Laboratory mission and the mission's Curiosity rover for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. The rover was designed, developed and assembled at JPL, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. For more about NASA's Curiosity mission, visit http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/msl , http://www.nasa.gov/mars , and http://marsprogram.jpl.nasa.gov/msl .

Image credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Malin Space Science Systems/Texas A&M Univ.
Image released by NASA on 2013-08-15 as catalog id PIA17353