Who said that you have to take selfies only on Earth? Doing this widespread action is also possible in space, and at millions of kilometres away from our planet. NASA’s Perseverance rover just proved it, and it has proven another intriguing fact: selfies can also be done by robots. In other words, it’s not mandatory to snap a selfie using the human hand, either.
As CNET.com reveals, the Mars Perseverance rover snapped a selfie with the Ingenuity helicopter this year in April, and the process was even a lot more complex than how it’s usually done on Earth. The Martian selfie is a mosaic of 62 images that were taken with a camera that’s mounted on the rover’s arm.
Check out the behind-the-scenes video!
NASA shared some interesting footage where it explains how the selfie was possible.
Mike Ravine of Malin Space Science System, declared as cited by CNET:
The thing that took the most attention was getting Ingenuity into the right place in the selfie,
Given how small it is, I thought we did a pretty good job.
The Perseverance rover belongs to the Mars 2020 program of NASA along with the helicopter drone Ingenuity. The totality of the gear needed for the mission was carried to the Red Planed by an Atlas V launch vehicle. The lift-off took place on July 20 last year.
One of the objectives of NASA’s Perseverance rover is to identify signs of alien life in the distant Martian past. While the chances for finding any green friends on our neighbouring planet are close to zero, encountering life in the form of microbes is much more plausible.
Tiesha loves to share her passion for everything that’s beautiful in this world. Apart from writing on her beauty blog and running her own beauty channel on Youtube, she also enjoys traveling and photography. Tiesha covers various stories on the website.