Curiosity Rover Snaps A Selfie

What is it with selfies these days that everyone would love to jump aboard the bandwagon, even if it means the death of wildlife in the process? Well, it looks like the Curiosity rover over on Mars does not want to be left out of the action at all, which is why we have received a selfie of it. In fact, the Curiosity rover has been making its way through Mars for three and a half years to date, sending back photos of the Red Planet for countless days. Why not capture a selfie after all these years? Things are not as easy as it seems though, as what you see above happens to be assembled from 57 discrete images that were recorded on January 19, 2016.

The Curiosity rover comes with different cameras on board, and the particular camera which actually performed the hard work for this portrait to be made possible is called the MAHLI, which is short for Mars Hand Lens Imager, that is mounted on the arm. Ground controllers will send commands for the camera to move in a place, and it was rather tricky trying to position it in a manner where the only component of the entire spacecraft that does not appear in any of the photos was the arm itself. While this rendered the shot incomplete, it did not take away from any of its beauty.

Edwin Kee
Categories: Robots
Tags: rover, selfie