A couple of days ago, Curiosity snapped a selfie (well, actually a series of images of portions of itself, using a camera on the end of a robotic arm.
Some clever person has now assembled them into a super-zoomable GigaPan image.
This is deeply cool. You can zoom right in on the rover’s “eyes”, you can see specks of dust and gravel on its body, you can follow its tracks off into the distance, and you can zoom and pan and explore the landscape.
And it’s on frickin’ MARS. 
Curiosity looks so lonely. We need to send it some friends.
Cool though, thanks for sharing. 
“EVA?”
Man, that martian dust gets everywhere doesn’t it?
Am I not seeing the arm to which the selfie camera was attached?
That’s right - the selfie is a composite of several frames taken by the Mars Hand Lens Imager, which is housed on the end of the rover’s arm.
OK, fine, just edit me out of the picture. See if I care!
sniff
This one’s now my favorite selfie ever. (Here’s #2.)
This is really amazing.
Look at the ground to the left of the rover. See the little blue oval? Could that be ice?
I looked at the JPL site and found out it’s a spot that the rover scrubbed with it dust removal tool. :smack:
Yes, the rover has prepared a spot where it is going to drill into that rock. Then it’s going to strike oil, build a big ranch and marry a brassy girl rover with big mastcams.
Maybe they should have named the rover Jed.
That’s what I was thinking. I was even doing the thing with the two fingers behind his head. And then they edit me out. It would have been hilarious.
You two are hilarious.
Zoom in a little on the equipment on top of the mast. Tell me you didn’t say, “Number Five is alive!”.
It looks like the treads are starting to crack.
Well spotted. I thought at first that black area on the middle wheel on the right (as we look at it) was missing data, but there are several quite big holes in it. Those rocks must be quite sharp.
Edit: looks like this is a known issue.
Why is there a reflection of Stevie Wonder in the camera lens?
My favorite picture from Mars.
IIRC, the serious purpose behind the selfies is to monitor wear and tear, isn’t it? Coolness is just the icing on the cake.
