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This is, without a doubt, the best photo of NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity. Taken on a Martian flat spot called John Klein, the image was just published by scientists at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. It looks she asked someone passing by to take her camera and shoot the picture.
In reality, the photo is a composition of multiple photos taken by the Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) on February 3, 2013. According to NASA “the self-portrait was acquired to document the drilling site,” but we all know they did it because it is freaking awesome.
This is how the made the magic happen:
The rover’s robotic arm is not visible in the mosaic. MAHLI, which took the component images for this mosaic, is mounted on a turret at the end of the arm. Wrist motions and turret rotations on the arm allowed MAHLI to acquire the mosaic’s component images. The arm was positioned out of the shot in the images or portions of images used in the mosaic.
Clever! The result is truly outstanding. [NASA Goddard]
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nice picture. the thing that impresses me is that they managed to take all the shots from the same position, yet never even catch the shadow of the arm that supports the camera.
saying that, the martian photographer’s shadow isn’t present either. clearly the aliens have capable cloaking devices.
I still find it remarkable that what we’re looking at is a robot 140m miles away (on average).
The quality of the photo rivals many good cameras here on Earth.
This thing was on earth yo, and now its on Mars, yo. Sickkkkkkkkk