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The Marvel rover has already made history after covering the most ground on another planet and helping scientists reconstruct the geological history of Mars. While it's moved more 12 miles (almost 20 kilometers), Curiosity has been hanging around the Vera Rubin Ridge for over a year. It's getting prepare to move out, just NASA took the time to snap a selfie first.

Curiosity's new selfie shows the rover sitting on the rust-colored terrain, looking at the camera with its "head." What we commonly call back of as the rover's head is actually a housing for the Mastcam and ChemCam instruments. The haze on the horizon is thanks to a local dust storm — nothing every bit severe every bit the global consequence that probably doomed the Opportunity rover last twelvemonth. NASA took the selfie on Jan 15th, merely this is really a composite of many images like all of Curiosity'southward selfies.

The epitome shows Curiosity even so looking rather good after more than six years on the red planet. Information technology's a bit dusty, and you can see damage on its wheels from the unexpectedly sharp Martian rocks. Still, NASA expects Curiosity to keep on trucking for years to come up.

NASA uses the Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) to take these photos. Information technology captures true colour images at a resolution of 1600 x 1200. The image released by NASA is much larger than that because it'south stitched together from 57 different frames. That's why the concluding paradigm has such amazing detail, and you tin can't see the MAHLI arm anywhere. NASA just uses all the frames to crop the arm out, making it wait like someone stood next to the rover and took a motion picture.

Curiosity self-portrait, compiled from 55 MAHLI images. Rocknest on the left, Mount Sharp on the rigth.

Expect how clean Curiosity was back in 2012.

Vera Rubin Ridge was Curiosity's 19th drill site on Mars. You tin see the tiny "Stone Hall" drill hole straight in forepart of the rover. At present, the rover is taking its drill to a "clay-bearing unit" located south of the ridge. Clay minerals may contain clues to assist us learn more about the ancient lakes that one time covered the land around Mountain Abrupt.

You lot tin see a larger version of the new Curiosity selfie here, and you tin can grab the total-resolution version on NASA's site. Information technology'southward 23 MB and almost 10,000 pixels square. You lot should be able to crop information technology downwardly to whatever size y'all want, but NASA besides has some pre-cropped wallpaper downloads in common resolutions.

Now read:

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  • Martian Dust Storm Is Now a 'Planet-Encircling' Outcome