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Opportunity's First Selfie

Feb 26, 2018
This self-portrait of NASA's Opportunity Mars rover shows the vehicle at a site called 'Perseverance Valley' on the slopes of Endeavour Crater. It was taken with the rover's Microscopic Imager to celebrate the 5000th Martian Day, or sol.

This self-portrait of NASA's Opportunity Mars rover shows the vehicle at a site called "Perseverance Valley" on the slopes of Endeavour Crater. It was taken with the rover's Microscopic Imager to celebrate the 5000th Martian Day, or sol, of the rover's mission.

The Microscopic Imager is a fixed-focus camera mounted at the end of the rover's robotic arm. Because it was designed for close inspection of rocks, soils and other targets at a distance of around 2.7 inches (7 cm), the rover is out of focus.

The rover's self-portrait view is made by stitching together multiple images take on Sol 5,000 and 5,006 of the mission. Wrist motions and turret rotations on the arm allowed the Microscopic Imager to acquire the mosaic's component images. The resulting mosaic does not include the rover's arm.

NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the Mars Exploration Rover Project for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington.

For more information about Opportunity, visit http://www.nasa.gov/rovers and http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov.

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