We’ve all taken pictures of ourselves at some point, but no one can boast about doing so on Mars. Yesterday, everybody’s favourite currently active Mars rover, Curiosity, sent back a self-portrait that is literally out of this world.
The picture finally gives us a great shot of Curiosity’s face (well, its mast) including its lone eye, which is actually the rover’s rock-busting laser. It’s a nice snapshot, but it didn’t come straight from Curiosity in such great condition. The original picture is obscured by the camera’s dust cover and taken from a weird upside-down angle.
The cleaned up image you see above is thanks to The Planetary Society’s Emily Lakdawalla, who cleaned up the shot and twisted it around so we could look Curiosity in the eye. The rover has a lot of other less vain work to do, but it’s nice to see a self-portrait of the robot that’s out there, alone on Mars, furthering the knowledge of all mankind. [NASA, The Planetary Society via The Verge]