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Birthday · July 1, 2021

Perseverance Selfie with Ingenuity

July 1, 2021

Your life began on a planet that never stops moving under a sky that never stops changing.

Perseverance Selfie with Ingenuity

A little universe, just for you

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APOD published July 1, 2021. Full image credits are on the original APOD entry below. A publication-date match, not a photo taken on your date. Independent of NASA.

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Perseverance Selfie with Ingenuity

Original APOD · July 1, 2021

On sol 46 (April 6, 2021) the Perseverance rover held out a robotic arm to take its first selfie on Mars. The WATSON camera at the end of the arm was designed to take close-ups of martian rocks and surface details though, and not a quick snap shot of friends and smiling faces. In the end, teamwork and weeks of planning on Mars time was required to program a complex series of exposures and camera motions to include Perseverance and its surroundings. The resulting 62 frames were composed into a detailed mosiac, one of the most complicated Mars rover selfies ever taken. In this version of the selfie, the rover's Mastcam-Z and SuperCam instruments are looking toward WATSON and the end of the rover's outstretched arm. About 4 meters (13 feet) from Perseverance is a robotic companion, the Mars Ingenuity helicopter.

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