NASA’s InSight Lander Sends A Selfie From Mars

NASA InSight lander’s selfie game is literally out of this world. It recently arrived on the Red Planet and to prove that it is indeed chilling up there on Mars, it has sent a selfie which shows the lander in all its glory. The image was posted on NASA’s official Twitter account.

NASA’s InSight robot landed on Mars late last month. It had quite a bit of a travel day heading there from Earth. The lander was moving through space for six months before it finally arrives on November 26th. This happened to be NASA’s first Martian landing since 2012.

Taking the selfie wasn’t exactly a one-second job for the lander. It had to take 11 images with a camera that’s attached to its robotic arm and then stitch those images together to create what you see above.

This isn’t the first NASA robot to send selfies down to Earth from Mars. The Curiosity rover has done it many times before. The image shows off the InSight’s solar panels in all of their glory. Some of the science equipment onboard the robot can be seen in the image as well.

The equipment includes a probe that can measure the heat flowing out of the planet’s interior, a seismometer to measure quakes on Mars in addition to storms and meteorite impacts. There’s also a pair of antennas onboard that can track the wobble of the Mars North Pole.

Adnan Farooqui
Categories: General
Tags: mars, NASA, Space