                        Astronomy Picture of the Day

    Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our
      fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation
                    written by a professional astronomer.

                                 2021 July 1

                     Perseverance Selfie with Ingenuity
                    Image Credit: NASA, JPL-Caltech, MSSS

   Explanation: 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.

                     Tomorrow's picture: pixels in space
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       Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)
            NASA Official: Phillip Newman Specific rights apply.
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