Solar eclipses on Mars a Martian day is 24 hours 37 minutes long, meaning that Phobos can create two eclipses per Martian day. These are annular eclipses, because Phobos is not quite large enough or close enough to Mars to create a total solar eclipse. Deimos is too small (about ) and too far from Mars to cause an eclipse. The best an observer on Mars would see is a small spot crossing the Sun's disc. Both moons are too small to cast a shadow on Mars that can be seen from Earth. However, shortly after the first artificial satellites were placed in orbit
Mars Cube One Mars Cube One Mars Cube One (or MarCO) is a Mars flyby mission that was launched on 5 May 2018 alongside NASA's "InSight" Mars lander mission. It consists of two nanospacecraft, MarCO-A and MarCO-B, that were able to provide a real-time communications link to Earth for "InSight" during its entry, descent, and landing (EDL) on 26 November 2018 - when "InSight" was out of line of sight from the Earth. Both are of the 6U CubeSat format, and the mission is a test of new miniaturized communications and navigation technologies. These are the first CubeSats designed to operate beyond Earth