Earth’s moon is the perfect size and position to create a total solar eclipse visible from Earth. Mars’ two moons are not big enough to block out the sun. Total solar eclipses occur on Earth every one to two years and every 18 years, 11 days, and 8 hours due to the Saros cycle.
You don’t necessarily have to live on Earth to see a total solar eclipse, but you’d be hard-pressed to find a better vantage point, even if you had a spaceship to take you around the solar system. Earth’s moon appears to be in the perfect position and the perfect size to completely block the sun from Earth’s vantage point. It also orbits the Earth in the same plane as the sun, making a total eclipse possible. Conversely, even if Mars has two moons, you wouldn’t see a total solar eclipse from its surface because those moons aren’t big enough to completely block out the sun. And even though our moon is slowly moving away from Earth — just like all celestial objects are moving away from each other as the universe expands — you have about 600 million years to catch a total solar eclipse before it does. the moon moves too far from the Earth for the sun to appear to disappear.
A view of solar eclipses:
As seen from Earth, a total solar eclipse occurs only once every one to two years and lasts no longer than seven and a half minutes.
Earth is especially good for observing a total solar eclipse because our moon is about 400 times closer to Earth than the sun, and its diameter is about 400 times smaller than that of the sun.
Relatively identical solar eclipses occur on Earth every 18 years, 11 days and 8 hours. This is known as the Saros cycle.
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