NASA’s lander InSight touched down on the Martian surface November 26 after hurtling through space for six months. It’s been capturing photos ― and even sounds ― of the alien planet, but has finally gotten a decent shot of itself.
NASA posted a photo to Twitter Wednesday evening showing InSight’s first selfie from Mars.
“The spacecraft used a camera on its robotic arm to create a mosaic made up of 11 images,” the space agency wrote. The images are “stitched” together, similar to how selfies of NASA’s Curiosity rover were created after it landed on the Martian surface in 2012.
As part of its mission, the Insight will be using three instruments over the next few weeks, including a seismometer, heat probe and radio antennas. Together these instruments will help scientists to better understand the internal makeup of Mars, determining things like the composition of the planet’s core and whether there might be liquid water below the surface.
Surely we will get a lot more images where this selfie came from, but we’ve certainly come a long way from the first image ever taken on Mars, by the Viking I lander after it touched down on the planet’s surface July 20, 1976.
Related
Before You Go
