E-mail updates
Follow on Twitter
Subscribe to RSS
NASA / JPL-Caltech / MSSS / Emily Lakdawalla
A photo from Curiosity's Mars Hand Lens Imager, or MAHLI, shows the rover's camera mast.
Anyone who's taken his or her own picture for a Facebook profile page will know how tricky it is to do what NASA's Curiosity rover just did: It turned one of its 17 cameras around on itself and took a snapshot of its very own "face on Mars."
The picture, which was sent down from Mars just a few hours ago, comes from the Mars Hand Lens Imager, or MAHLI, a camera mounted on the end of Curiosity's jointed, 7-foot-long (2.1-meter-long) robotic arm. The top of the rover's mast — the face — is front and center, with the Martian horizon in the far background.
The biggest "eye" on the face is the lens for the ChemCam instrument, which can shoot out a laser beam to vaporize rock and read the chemical signature contained in the resulting flash of light. Two square eyes below the big lens represent the two cameras of the color Mastcam imaging system. Four smaller round eyes, two on each side, are the high-resolution, black-and-white Navcam imagers.
We've seen pictures from all those instruments in the month since Curiosity's Aug. 5 landing, but this is the first picture looking back at the instruments themselves. The only view we've previously gotten of the mast is the shadow that it cast on the Martian surface.
The picture has a reddish cast because it was taken through MAHLI's dust-coated lens cover. (You can see the turnaround image of MAHLI, as seen by Mastcam, at the top of this story.) The Planetary Society's Emily Lakdawalla, who processed the MAHLI image for her blog, has adjusted the contrast, coloring and composition to produce a balanced, beautiful picture for Curiosity's profile page.
Her blog entry also includes a must-see LOL version of the picture, which plays off the fact that ChemCam has been doing some "lazrin" lately — be sure to check the posting for that shot as well as other goodies. And stay tuned for even sharper self-portraits over the months to come.
Curiosity's two-year, $2.5 billion primary mission in Gale Crater is aimed at teasing out the geological record over billions of years on Mars, and figuring out whether the Red Planet had the carbon-based chemistry that's conducive to life. Right now, the rover is heading for a geologically interesting spot called Glenelg, but eventually it will make its way toward the flanks of a 3-mile-high (5-kilometer-high) mountain known as Aeolis Mons or Mount Sharp. To learn more about Curiosity and its mission, follow these links:
More about the Curiosity mission:
- Mars rover's tracks traced from orbit
- Curiosity looks back at its first tracks
- Rover's first moves at Bradbury Landing
- Listen to the first song sent from Mars
- Rover sends first human voice from Mars
- Martian peak picks up some extra color
- Curiosity finds Mars 'teeming with UFOs'
- Cosmic Log archive for the Mars mission
Alan Boyle is NBCNews.com's science editor. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page, following @b0yle on Twitter and adding the Cosmic Log page to your Google+ presence. To keep up with Cosmic Log as well as NBCNews.com's other stories about science and space, sign up for the Tech & Science newsletter, delivered to your email in-box every weekday. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for new worlds.
Leave a Comment:
Whooppee! As long as it doesn't start texting me I wish it Blue Birds up there. What does it do on a Saturday Night anyway? Play with its rock collection or something?
according to plato...mars at one time was very close to earth..about 12000 years ago and there was travel between earth and mars...but then a planet sized bollide came into our solar system and knocked mars out of orbit killing life on the whole planet and it caused earth to wobble causing the sinking and rising of continents and setting back civilization back thousands of years...that bollide finally got caught by the suns' pull and it went into reverse spin and became the planet venus...that is what plato claimed.
Hmm - not in any Plato that I've read.
Of course Plato also thought that every substance is made of earth, air, fire, and water.
He also thought that the Sun, Moon, and planets are made of aether, "the pure, glowing upper air that the gods breath" as opposed to the regular air that us mere mortals are stuck with.
He thought that the planets were alive, and have souls. Plato also thought that the stars are affixed on a crystalline sphere.
And one more thing - Plato was convinced that the Earth was at the center of the Universe - everything orbits us, so no "bollide [sic] finally got caught by the suns' [sic] pull" because as far as Plato was concerned the Sun has no pull.
I've ne'er seen any of that from Plato, either.
Not being a "real" academic, maybe it was Pluto!?!? Down Pluto, down. Good boy!!!!
More like "Goofy".
I think it was Plato's evil twin, Flato.
I think he just misspelled "Play-Doh"
Hmmm, about the same time that Atlantic blew up and sank beneath the waves, never to be seen again.
Do you think that the Sages were fooled by the wind and waves and the Atlanteans transferred to Mars and shot off into space instead? That would explain it's being chosen as the Red Faced god of War as the Atlanteans were supposedly very advanced and (according to Disney at least) very aggressive!
I'd better be careful with this; I might be initiating a new Atlantomartian cult.
When Romney is president we'll get NASA back on course so we don't have to call the Russians for a taxi when we want to go to the space station. Obama gave GM more billions than NASA has spent since Kennedy was in office.........and the latest is that GM and GMAC can never pay it back. They don't have it and they will soon be into 3rd place behind Toyota and Volkswagen...........
Wow that's some wild sci-fi right there
I think Romney will cut taxes so much they will have to cut NASA's budget even more.
I think Obama has other interests than NASA.
I don't think most politicians give a hoot about space anymore.
Agreed Tony, neither candidate shows much interest in space exploration other than lip service. In general, politicians probably never will properly back space exploration since most major projects, like ISS and any future trips to the Moon or Mars (or beyond), will span multiple Presidential terms or Congressional terms, and with the need for a politician to justify his presence to his constituents, selling a long term project AND keeping yourself in office could be tough (or impossible with term limit on POTUS).
So this is what 60 Million dollars worth of wasted time looks like,,What a jokers paridise this scam in turning out to be. Start looking at more dumb rock,,they you see what all these idiots are Dumb rocks..
I for one am looking forward to the in depth study of those "dumb rocks". Neat pic, I really wish the rover could of done that on it's own, instead I have a pretty good suspicion that an entire set of commands were sent that moved an entire series of motors and twenty eight minutes later they (jpl) recieved a picture. It is amazing and I do figure this particular pic is all part of the diagnostic routine in liue of real business. Imagine the cost to send a geologist to mars, replete with a lab of IR,UV,VIS spectrometers,weather station, nuetron and x ray 'trometers, some glass ware and all the supporting data and several cameras, a small drill a nice laser and a power pack to beat all other power paks. The rovers are essentially the most economical cost saving move done by any government since the rural electrification project....proud are we all. Now, we need a geologist on the moon!!...if it's this same basic telepresence, than so be it. But the fact remains we (america) needs lithium in order to convert all our cars over from fossil to electric (yes, I know we WILL burn more coal..not what I am driving at)...see, the chinese know that lithium will play a major part in the future american and even world economy, for the last decade and a half they have been agressively signing up the rights to worldwide deposits. Perhaps another technology will come along, like graphene, but meanwhile, lithium looks like the element of the twenty second century and we don't have what it takes....is it a component of the lunar regolith??...get some geologists up there pronto and make some decisions and declarations....china is on a step wise path to doing just that. Laughing will not make the problem go away. Tomorrow a fair percentage of the public will buy more devices using lithium batteries, and none of it will of come from america. Yes small thorium reactors look good from a distance....when you really get to know em, you'll know ugly. I call for more imperial space probes, we should have rolling geologists headed to every space destination we can reasonably set em down on...and the moon being the closest, should have the most rovers, not NONE. Meanwhile, our latest robotic geologist is the coolest robot in the know universe right now. (and a great reason to take a second look at the nerva project).
Nice pic and post explorer, now get back to work and stop wasting the bandwidth! LOL
Science flies us to Mars and the Moon while religious cults fly us into buildings.
IF the US ever elects a religious cultist for President, lotta MILLIONAIRES/BILLIONAIRES will be interested in flying into outerspace themselves to get away from the HELL...man created on Earth.
Why do you think there is so much interest in private space ventures now?
If cannot be rich, maybe I'll become a butler so they will take me along.
I'm reminded of a magazine comic from the 60's (might've been Look or the Saturday Evening Post...which will mean little to most of you). A base on the Moon (as proved by the view oot the window), a clergyman of some sort addressing a congregation of astronauts (you could tell, in that they wee all wearing unhelmeted spacesuits) in its chapel, and the caption:
"May I remind you gentlemen that you are just as far from Heaven, and just as close to Hell, up here as anywhere else!"
Lets hope that all that money spent produces more than a song and self portriat sent back. Kind of sad if there isnt anything else there but rock and gas.
Number 5 is alive!!!
I find it hard to believe that F'in "mountain" is 3 miles high. It looks like a big bimp...a bimp.
God's creations.
Science flies probes to Mars. Religion flies people into buildings.
Science burns Martian rocks with lasers. Religion burns people on stakes.
Though I am far from religious, and certainly not about to justify or apologize for any religion, it is highly dubious to state absolutes like that Biffster.
Extremists of any and all religions are a danger, as they are less inclined to focus on understanding and tolerance of other religions and beliefs in order to focus on eradication of other religions and beliefs. Not every person who believes in "god" is a danger to science, just as not every scientist is an atheist who seeks to destroy "god".
Science is not innocent either, as desire for personal glory and/or money can lead some astray, to say nothing of using improper techniques or examinations in the name of science (whether by ignorance or laziness it really doesn't matter).
Christian explorers to the New World slaughtered Native Americans ("heathens" in their mind) in the name of religion. Scientists, and those claim scientific exploration, slaughter creatures great and small all over the Earth. Is there really a difference? Is one justified and one not? Or should we all hold ourselves to a higher degree of responsibility?
Well he took a Profile pic...why not start its own facebook page.... post his status....Driving around looking for stuff AGAIN!
Dear MSNBC, that is not the Cam mast, that is a laser
??????
He thinks that it's just the laser and is trying to correct the article, he probably doesn't realize that there is 7 camera's on it too.
Mitchell
I don't think he has any idea what a laser is.