Planets and Moons ID: 30707

Curiosity Selfies, Fall 2015

Released on October 29, 2015

The Mars Science Laboratory’s Curiosity has the unique ability to capture self-portraits, or selfies. Curiosity uses the Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) located at the end of its robotic arm to capture sets of thumbnail images that are then stitched together to create full-color mosaics. The rover’s robotic arm is positioned out of the shot in the images, or portions of images, used to create the mosaics and therefore, is not visible. These images show Curiosity on October 31, 2012, October 5, 2015, and August 5, 2015. The October 2012 selfie was taken when the rover was located at "Rocknest,” the spot in Gale Crater where the mission's first scoop sampling took place. The October 2015 selfie was taken nearly 3 years later, when the rover was located at the "Big Sky” site, where its drill collected the mission's fifth taste of Mount Sharp. Lastly, the August 2015 selfie was taken when the rover was located at "Buckskin” on lower Mount Sharp. Selfies like this one document the state of the rover and allow mission engineers to track changes over time such as dust accumulation and wheel wear shown here. For scale, the rover's wheels are 20 inches (50 centimeters) in diameter and about 16 inches (40 centimeters) wide. Only MAHLI (among the rover's 17 cameras) is able to image some parts of the craft, including the portside wheels.

For More Information

http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA16468

http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA19808

http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA19920

Credits

Heather Hanson (GST): Writer
Marit Jentoft-Nilsen: Project Support
Mark Malanoski (GST): Project Support

Please give credit for this item to:
NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS

Short URL to share this page:
https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/30707

Mission:
Mars Science Laboratory - MSL

Data Used:

Curiosity/Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI)

view all stories where this data set is used

Note: While we identify the data sets used in these visualizations, we do not store any further details nor the data sets themselves on our site.

Keywords:
SVS >> Mars
SVS >> Hyperwall
NASA Science >> Planets and Moons
SVS >> Curiosity
SVS >> Presentation