Solar Eclipse on Mars

It's amazing how the relative size of our sun and our moon are almost exactly the same, and because of that eclipses of the sun are very exciting - rare, but exciting. No where else in out solar system do moons of planets produce the same awesome site. But, nonetheless, eclipses of the sun do occur on other planets. However, no one (that we know of) is there to witness them. 

Well, not exactly ...

Earlier this month operators of NASA's Perseverance rover turned its powerful Mastcam-Z camera toward the sky to capture Mars' potato-shaped moon Phobos transiting across the surface of the Sun. And the result was amazing. 

Mars' moon Phobos transiting across the surface of the Sun
NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory

Check out the video at ARS Technica.

What's with the W Boson?

The Collider Detector at Fermilab

Something is just not right with the mass of the W boson - it's just a bit heavier than expected. How much? Well, in terms of atomic measurements, it was expected to be 80,357 mega electron volts, or MeV, plus or minus 6 MeV. But the value as measured by the Collider Detector at Fermilab, or CDF, during the period between 1985 and 2011, is 80,433 MeV, plus or minus 9 MeV. That's significant and is a problem. It's critical to know the precise weight of the W boson because that value is factored into the finely tuned equations that are woven into the Standard Model of subatomic physics, one of the most successful theories in science. For the complete story head on over to UniverseToday.