NASA's Curiosity Mars Rover is snapping selfies of itself again, with its latest photo revealing the breathtaking red dunes and dust of Pahrump Hills, the location of its latest geological endeavors.
The photo in question (above) is actually a combination of dozens of images captured by the rover's Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) camera, which is not unlike a "selfie-stick" for the Mars-roaming robot. And this is apparently the best selfie Curiosity has taken yet.
"Compared with the earlier Curiosity selfies, we added extra frames for this one so we could see the rover in the context of the full Pahrump Hills campaign," rover team member Kathryn Stack, at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., explained in a recent statement.
She added that all the photos were taken while the rover sat in the site known as "Mojave 2," a smaller portion above the greater outcrop known as Pahrump Hills.
"From the Mojave site, we could include every stop we've made during the campaign [in one photo]," Stack said.
Aside from angling its selfie-stick to get its best side, Curiosity also performed several drilling experiments at the Mojave 2 site. These tests and preliminary chemical analyses have already revealed that soil from the area is far more acidic than previously thought, providing hints about the state of water during Mount Sharp's (seen in the back-left of the image) formation.
Since leaving the Mojave site, Curiosity has driven to another location visible in the scene, where drilling at a site called "Telegraph Peak" is planned.
Much like the compound photo, this repeated drilling should provide experts with a better "snapshot" of the average Martian landscape - providing important clues about the soil and even 'death' of the Red Planet.
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