Even NASA’s Rover Takes A Selfie Before Commencing Work On Mars

The Selfie craze has engulfed the entire world. Moreover The Inquisitr recently reported how even the astronauts aboard the International Space Station (ISS) couldn’t resist the urge to take a Selfie.

However, in what could be truly considered as the next step in automation and self–awareness in machines, NASA’s Curiosity rover sent to Mars has taken a beautiful Selfie and sent back the same for us earthlings to drool over.

NASA’s Curiosity rover was shot into space for its long journey to our nearest planet Mars in November 2010. So far the mission has had its fair share of roadblocks, with NASA confirming that the Curiosity rover was ‘Warm Reset’ to rectify a software glitch. There have also been many tense moments as the software instructions beamed from earth were being uploaded, reported MNN.

So, that happened. Had a warm reset yestersol. I'm healthy. Spending the weekend awaiting new instructions. http://t.co/RME6ADB9ml

— Curiosity Rover (@MarsCuriosity) November 9, 2013

Since landing on the Martian surface on August 5, 2012, the Curiosity rover has been slowly making its way to the huge three–mile high mountain nicknamed Mount Sharp. Somehow the rover chose this beautiful sight as a backdrop to take the epic Selfie. Though the rover doesn’t exactly have a face to take what is considered a normal Selfie, one can clearly see the rover’s “face” which consists of the eye-like navigation cameras and the workhorse Mastcam. Typical to a Selfie taking process, the image was snapped by a camera mounted on one of Curiosity’s arm, known as the Hand Lens Imager.

NASA has been remotely asking the rover to continually click images of the Martian surface to determine the terrain and optimal locations to drill for samples. Interestingly, the one–ton rover is the first robot to have drilled into the Martian surface to find out what’s below.

Curiosity rover is on a two year mission to determine if the Red Planet has ever been capable of supporting microbial life. Astonishingly, the robot has already achieved that goal. It found microscopic evidence of microbial life in an area quite near its landing site called Yellowknife Bay. The rover established the fact that the red planet was indeed home to bacteria and microbes billions of years ago. In other words, Curiosity has once and for all laid to doubts that Mars was indeed habitable, reported TWC.

The Selfie’s amazing clarity is owing to NASA scientists “stitching” multiple images together to form a beautiful panorama that has been uploaded on Flickr. However, the image does suggest Curiosity is kind of taking a Selfie before it embarks on the treacherous climb atop Mount Sharp.

[Image Credit NASA]