The 'googly eye' spotted in space

Nasa's Perseverance rover has made a whole range of fascinating discoveries since it landed on Mars, but something it sent back recently is particularly eye-opening.

It sent back images of what the space agency said was a "googly eye" looking down onto the red planet.

Of course it wasn't actually a giant eye floating through space, but was in fact one of Mars' moons casting a shadow as it passed in front of the Sun.

In this case the star looked like the iris, while the pupil was the result of Phobos blocking the light.

Perseverance is a rover that landed in a deep crater, called Jezero, near Mars' equator in February 2021.

Nasa hopes it will be able to find signs of life on the planet.

The robot has plenty of cameras, which have sent back some pretty incredible pictures so far.

This time one of the cameras sent back images from 30 September, as Phobos blocked out some of the Sun's light.

Phobos is one of Mars' two moons

Phobos is shaped a bit like a giant potato and is much smaller than Earth's Moon - which is around 157 times bigger.

As Phobos is so small, it isn't possible for Mars to experience a total solar eclipse - that's when the Sun is completely blocked out.

Perseverance isn't the only Nasa rover that has captured pictures of Phobos, another rover called Opportunity took a picture in 2004.

Scientists compare the images to learn more about this moon's orbit and how it is changing.

Experts say that Phobos is actually getting closer to Mars and is predicted to crash into it in about 50 million years.