CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) 鈥 The latest selfie by NASA’s Perseverance rover at Mars has captured an unexpected guest: a Martian dust devil.
Resembling a small pale puff, the popped up 3 miles (5 kilometers) behind during this month鈥檚 photo shoot. Released Wednesday, the selfie is a composite of 59 images taken by the camera on the end of the rover鈥檚 robotic arm, according to NASA.
It took an hour to perform all the arm movements necessary to gather the images, 鈥渂ut it’s worth it,鈥 said Megan Wu, an imaging scientist from Malin Space Science Systems, which built the camera.
ARTICLE CONTINUES BELOW
鈥淗aving the dust devil in the background makes it a classic,” Wu said in a statement.
The picture 鈥 which also shows the rover’s latest sample borehole on the surface 鈥 marks 1,500 sols or Martian days for Perseverance. That’s equivalent to 1,541 days on Earth.
Perseverance is covered with red dust, the result of drilling into dozens of rocks. Launched in 2020, it鈥檚 collecting samples for eventual return to Earth from Jezero Crater, an ancient lakebed and river delta that could hold clues of any past microbial life.
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The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute鈥檚 Science and Educational Media Group and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
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