Earth as a Tiny Speck: Mars rover captures a rare Earth-Phobos moment

NASA’s Perseverance rover used the Mastcam-Z camera to produce a grainy composite showing Earth as a tiny bright dot passing behind Mars’ moon Phobos on July 2, 2026. It’s the first time Earth has been photographed from the surface of another planet while an astronomical object occluded it, achieved by stacking nine frames and processing to darken the background; the event also nods to earlier Earth-from-Mars shots by Spirit (2004) and Curiosity (2014).