The Rover Curiosity has been on the surface of Mars for several
months now. NASA recently released a photograph that the
Curiosity Rover took of itself on October 31 and November 1 of
this year. Those days were the 84th and 85th Martian days for
the Curiosity mission. The photograph, which you see above, was
taken by the Curiosity Rover using the robotic arm and Mars Hand
Lens Imager camera. The self-portrait required some serious
choreography as the robotic arm had to move through more than 50
positions in one day to generate a single scene to combine all
the images. Judging by some of the odd black lines, the
choreography wasn’t perfect. We end up with what appears to be
an image of the Curiosity Rover taken by someone standing beside
and above the Rover slightly. Along with the self-portrait, NASA
also released an animation video showing how the image was
taken. NASA practiced the movements of the robot arm on earth
first using the Vehicle System Test Bed Rover at the Jet
Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena,