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Curiosity Snaps 'Arm's Length' Self Portrait

Posted by timothy on from the pleased-to-meet-me dept.

astroengine writes "Using its robotic arm-mounted MAHLI camera, NASA's Mars rover Curiosity has snapped, quite possibly, the most iconic image to come from the mission so far. By stitching together 55 high-resolution photos, the rover has snapped an 'arm's length' self portrait, capturing its location in the geologically interesting area known as 'Rocknest,' including its recent scoop marks in the Martian soil and the base of Mt. Sharp." Note to NASA: Please sell this image in the form of a fundraising poster.

66 of 96 comments (clear)

  1. That's strange by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    I didn't know Curiosity was a teenage girl.

    1. Re:That's strange by Dutchmaan · · Score: 1

      "Self shot and BOT!"

    2. Re:That's strange by jtownatpunk.net · · Score: 4, Funny

      Just needs the duck lips.

    3. Re:That's strange by jhoegl · · Score: 3, Funny

      I knew it... they have mirrors on Mars!

    4. Re:That's strange by Kjella · · Score: 3, Insightful

      And some more exposed circuitry.

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    5. Re:That's strange by elashish14 · · Score: 1

      Some more eyeshadow and it'd be great on myspace

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  2. Where is the arm? by Janek+Kozicki · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Where is the arm that holds the camera?

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    #
    #\ @ ? Colonize Mars
    #
    1. Re:Where is the arm? by SomePgmr · · Score: 5, Interesting

      It's a series of images that, when stitched, conveniently exclude the arm.

    2. Re:Where is the arm? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      A martial is holding the camera

    3. Re:Where is the arm? by kasperd · · Score: 5, Interesting

      It's a series of images that, when stitched, conveniently exclude the arm.

      True, but where does the arm attach to the rover? That end of the arm must be visible on any picture taking of that part of the rover. I am curious to see the individual parts, just to figure out how that part of the rover really looks.

      --

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    4. Re:Where is the arm? by ColdWetDog · · Score: 5, Insightful

      This thing is going to get photoshopped to hell and back again.

      Too many possibilities to ignore.

      --
      Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
    5. Re:Where is the arm? by Dutchmaan · · Score: 1

      It's a series of images that, when stitched, conveniently exclude the arm.

      It seems to be excluding any shadow of any arm as well, The shadows for everything are plainly visible almost a straight down angle as if the sun is almost directly overhead... There's not even a shadow for an arm.

    6. Re:Where is the arm? by Barryke · · Score: 5, Informative

      Apparently it is attached to the rover by the horizontal cylinder shaped appendix between the front wheels.
      http://www.thenakedscientists.com/HTML/uploads/RTEmagicC_Msl-arm.jpg.jpg

      Also google for "mars curiosity arm" theres some really nice pictures there.

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    7. Re:Where is the arm? by thegarbz · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Look again. Follow that structure straight down the middle of the image to the bottom visible wheel, see how it casts a shadow? Now follow up towards the 10 O'clock position and suddenly there's a bit of that structure with a shadow and yet nothing above it? That's the support for the camera.

    8. Re:Where is the arm? by Ford+Prefect · · Score: 5, Informative

      Top-left here.

      (Of note - the raw images got released quite a few hours before the official stitched version did. So a bunch of amateurs including myself and others used various panorama-assembling software to assemble our own, unofficial stitched versions. Seeing Curiosity like this before pretty much everyone else was great...)

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      Tedious Bloggy Stuff - hooray?
    9. Re:Where is the arm? by Ford+Prefect · · Score: 4, Interesting

      You can see shadows from the turret on the end of the arm in a couple of the raw images. Whoever planned the arm manoeuvres did an incredible job - not only did the arm itself almost completely disappear in final stitched versions, the images have very little parallax despite the arm very much not being a proper panoramic camera mount.

      Of note - there was a second set of images taken - very similar to the first, but with a small horizontal offset. Likely result? 3D versions of the panorama!

      The only thing I want now is, perhaps in a year or so, a full 360-degrees spherical panorama of the rover parked near some interesting cliffs or other geography. Go on, NASA - do it! ;-)

      --
      Tedious Bloggy Stuff - hooray?
    10. Re:Where is the arm? by Dunbal · · Score: 2

      Those engineers made sure that anyone discovering the rover would understand the human race. It's all about the penis.

      --
      Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
    11. Re:Where is the arm? by steppedleader · · Score: 1

      Hmm, the thing on the upper left looks a bit like a camera... I think they've buried the lede: Curiosity has clearly found a big mirror on Mars!

    12. Re:Where is the arm? by Janek+Kozicki · · Score: 3, Informative

      Top-left here.

      Thanks! Now I see that the arm has indeed been removed by using other photos. And also in this place on the stiched photo there is a small inconsitency.

      --
      #
      #\ @ ? Colonize Mars
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    13. Re:Where is the arm? by TheGratefulNet · · Score: 2

      there's a lot of exposed wiring and cabling. is that really the best way to do this? I would have thought that it would be safer to at least enclose in tubing or put the wiring inside hollowed out areas of the arm.

      scrap that against a rock or have some rocks tumble on you and you lose wires.

      am I missing some great wisdom here? or are those exposed wires a liability waiting to happen?

      --

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      "It is now safe to switch off your computer."
    14. Re:Where is the arm? by Impy+the+Impiuos+Imp · · Score: 1

      > It's a series of images that, when stitched,
      > conveniently exclude the arm.

      Good one for public relations, NASA.

      Reminds me of that scene from M*A*S*H where Father Mulcahey grows corn all year and, after harvesting, the army cook turns it into creamed corn.

      --
      (-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
    15. Re:Where is the arm? by mikael · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I'd imagine you have several possible problems:

      1. The protective casing breaks off. No different from laptops - what are the first parts to break? The small fiddly plastic bits like hinge covers, plastic connectors.

      2. If an electrical circuit breaks or has a short circuit, how do you know where exactly if it is concealed by tubes and covers?

      3. The extra casing would add more weight to the robot.

      Normally, things like satellites get covered in layers of insulation, gold foil and shielding, but that is due to radiation and extreme temperature change.

      --
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    16. Re:Where is the arm? by ColdWetDog · · Score: 2

      1. Weight.
      2. Weight.
      3. Complexity
      4. Weight.

      It's not like they're scraping the sides of Hell's Canyon in this thing. Nobody is careening into rock walls. I'm sure this was debated at length in engineering meetings. If you cover everything, then you can't see it (duh). Visual inspection is one of the strong points of the Rover so by making everything all aerodynamic you potentially cover a lot of useful information.

      Besides, it looks cool this way. Very geeky.

      --
      Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
    17. Re:Where is the arm? by elashish14 · · Score: 1

      It was taken by a local who, as he left, was heard muttering 'Tourists....'

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      I have left slashdot and am now on Soylent News. FUCK YOU DICE.
    18. Re:Where is the arm? by hey! · · Score: 1

      Check out the image to conventional portrait of Curiosity in the Wikipedia entry. You'll see there is a robotic arm mounted on the front of the rover that does not appear in the self portrait.

      If you think of the robotic arm as analogous to a human arm, it has a pair of motors at the "shoulder" (for two axes of motion), one at the "elbow" and another pair at the "wrist". In the self portrait only the "shoulder" of the arm is visible -- you can see one of the motors (which looks like a pair of stacked black cylinders) adjacent to the nearest wheel at roughly the ten o'clock position. The arm itself would be on the other side of the joint from that motor, but it is replaced in the composite shot by a picture of the ground behind where it would be taken when the arm was in a different position.

      It took a clever bit of planning to make this image.

      --
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    19. Re:Where is the arm? by dgatwood · · Score: 1

      I'm waiting for the one with Marvin.

      --

      Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.

    20. Re:Where is the arm? by tbird81 · · Score: 1

      Take a look at the high res photo:
      http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/jpeg/PIA16239.jpg

      In front of the corner of Curiosity closest to the camera, there's a dark grey cylinder with part faded out. Beneath, and slightly lateral to this you can see a motor which has had the top left corner diagonally cut out of it.

      The arm was attached to this area, and that why as it rotated the picture here changed. It's the only place there are any major artefacts in the image.

    21. Re:Where is the arm? by Ford+Prefect · · Score: 2

      Wondering what else I could do with the stuff I assembled in Hugin, I put together a quick interactive version of the panorama. Requires a recent browser with WebGL support - uses the open-source Pannellum as the viewer.

      --
      Tedious Bloggy Stuff - hooray?
    22. Re:Where is the arm? by antdude · · Score: 1

      Yay, a new meme!

      --
      Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
    23. Re:Where is the arm? by Janek+Kozicki · · Score: 1

      Awesome! Thanks :)

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  3. Hot, hot, hot by vikingpower · · Score: 2, Funny

    As soon as my daughter is born, I'm gonna name her Curiosity. Thereafter, our boy will be named Mars, so she can roll all over.... Oh, wait.

    --
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    1. Re:Hot, hot, hot by Nyder · · Score: 1

      As soon as my daughter is born, I'm gonna name her Curiosity. Thereafter, our boy will be named Mars, so she can roll all over.... Oh, wait.

      Families that play together, stay together...

      --
      Be seeing you...
  4. What a co-incidence!!! by MrKaos · · Score: 5, Funny

    To the Mars natives, Curiosity is known as the "Rocknest Monster"

    --
    My ism, it's full of beliefs.
    1. Re:What a co-incidence!!! by TheGratefulNet · · Score: 1

      at least 2 large green men were heard uttering "this was not born here. can you find its manufacturing certificate, anywhere? there's only the short panel of text on the side, we need to see the longer version."

      yes, 'doubters' on mars are really big and heavy.

      that's why we call them girthers.

      --

      --
      "It is now safe to switch off your computer."
    2. Re:What a co-incidence!!! by guttentag · · Score: 1
      NASA figured out that the surest way to meet some easy Martians is to post an arm's-length photo of yourself on mars.craigslist.com/personals/casualencounters

      New In Town!
      Self-sufficient adventurous type seeks casual encounters. I've been out on my own for a while now, have a serious, analytical side, but a warm heart. I still write home to my parents every day. Would love to send them photos of me with my new friends. Don't be shy! I don't bite -- I just vaporize little rocks out of curiosity.
      --Rocknest Monster

  5. Thirty-five megapixel version by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    5463 x 7595 pixels (width x height)

    Original Caption Released with Image:

            On Sol 84 (Oct. 31, 2012), NASA's Curiosity rover used the Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) to capture this set of 55 high-resolution images, which were stitched together to create this full-color self-portrait.

            The mosaic shows the rover at "Rocknest," the spot in Gale Crater where the mission's first scoop sampling took place. Four scoop scars can be seen in the regolith in front of the rover.

            The base of Gale Crater's 3-mile-high (5-kilometer) sedimentary mountain, Mount Sharp, rises on the right side of the frame. Mountains in the background to the left are the northern wall of Gale Crater. The Martian landscape appears inverted within the round, reflective ChemCam instrument at the top of the rover's mast.

            Self-portraits like this one document the state of the rover and allow mission engineers to track changes over time, such as dust accumulation and wheel wear. Due to its location on the end of the robotic arm, only MAHLI (among the rover's 17 cameras) is able to image some parts of the craft, including the port-side wheels.

            This high-resolution mosaic is a more detailed version of the low-resolution version created with thumbnail images, at PIA16238.

            JPL manages the Mars Science Laboratory/Curiosity for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. The rover was designed, developed and assembled at JPL, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena.

            For more about NASA's Curiosity mission, visit: http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/msl, http://www.nasa.gov/mars, and http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl.
    Image Credit:
            NASA/JPL-Caltech/Malin Space Science Systems

    Image Addition Date:
            2012-11-01

  6. Re:Why are there footprints... by White+Flame · · Score: 4, Informative

    Those are the little trenches where it was scooping soil samples.

  7. So far away by sa1lnr · · Score: 1

    but it looks like it could be any arid/desert landscape on Earth.

    And no I'm not suggesting conspiracy. :)

    1. Re:So far away by White+Flame · · Score: 1

      Except for the color of the sky, and presumably the color of light hitting the rover.

    2. Re:So far away by tomhath · · Score: 1

      'shopped, I can tell by the pixels.

  8. Re:Why are there footprints... by Psychotria · · Score: 4, Funny

    Those are the little trenches where it was scooping soil samples.

    Hand in your conspiracy theorist badge. Now. They can be nothing but footprints. Little trenches from scooping soil samples... hilarious.

  9. Note to Slashdot by fustakrakich · · Score: 5, Informative

    Please don't don't try to 'sell' page hits. Use the source...

    --
    “He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
    1. Re:Note to Slashdot by fm6 · · Score: 1

      Why not?

    2. Re:Note to Slashdot by fustakrakich · · Score: 1

      I'd rather not have my bandwidth and CPU cycles consumed by advertising, which also clogs the tubes all around the internet. It causes my music streaming to break up and slows down my torrents.

      --
      “He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
    3. Re:Note to Slashdot by fm6 · · Score: 1

      I agree that it's better to link a primary source rather than some watered-down news site or blog. But I don't see them selling links here, just not bothering to track down the original source. Slashdot editors barely even read the submissions they post, never mind editing them for commercial purposes.

  10. Re:Why are there footprints... by Psychotria · · Score: 5, Funny

    Now that I look at it more I can find even further flaws in your theory that that are not footprints. If you zoom in, magnify and apply 24 Laplace transforms (not enough room here to write them out completely), rotate 5 degrees, shift each pixel using a polar function, rotate -5 degrees, zoom, sharpen, smooth, stretch horizontally 314 pixels, rotate 1.618 degrees, add the height Mt Everest and subtract 15 before finally passing it through a modified Bresenham circle algorithm you can clearly see the thread. The threads are clearly from a shoe... not your so called "little trenches".

  11. That arm going to be handy by chaos_technique · · Score: 1

    ... when it finds the cat

    --
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  12. Can anyone say.... by KrazyDave · · Score: 1

    WALL-E?

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  13. Re:Why are there footprints... by Psychotria · · Score: 2

    Hold the fort!

    I've done some more careful analysis and this is truly incredible. If you add the height of each Giza pyramid, convert the image to greyscale with each pixel having a value of 0-0xffff, add those values to the original image, mask with 0xffff, rotate by the circumference of the Great Pyramid, project the 2d greyscale image to 3D with an eye distance of -1 you get this. No joke.

  14. We all know what's really out there by pointyhat · · Score: 2

    http://batdoc.files.wordpress.com/2012/08/mars-rover-aliens.jpg

  15. robot by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Gotta love how no efforts to pretty it up ends up making it look really cool.

  16. Re:Why are there footprints... by bmimatt · · Score: 1

    Exactly!  The footprints of the Russians that took the picture.  Haven't you seen 'Apollo 18'?
    Cool pic though.

  17. higher resolution? by StripedCow · · Score: 1

    Is there a higher resolution available somewhere? I want to use it on my desktop.

    --
    If Pandora's box is destined to be opened, *I* want to be the one to open it.
    1. Re:higher resolution? by WrecklessSandwich · · Score: 2

      Is there a higher resolution available somewhere? I want to use it on my desktop.

      Linked from the bottom of the page in TFA: http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA16239

  18. Re:Why are there footprints... by uncanny · · Score: 1

    in other words, "ENHANCE"

  19. Also funny on Mars linked from that article by theshowmecanuck · · Score: 1

    This was one of the links at the bottom of the OP article. It is a pretty funny look at some unrealistic dreams of going to Mars.

    --
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  20. Thank Dog by AragornSonOfArathorn · · Score: 1

    No duckface.

    --
    sudo eat my shorts
  21. Re:Asking NASA to SELL the image? by CityZen · · Score: 1

    The information is free. You can download the bits no charge. But if you want a high quality print on good paper, that's another story.

  22. Re:I'm confused...... by CityZen · · Score: 1

    There is no image of the camera, but just the body of the rover and its surroundings.

    You can do the same thing yourself by taking a a few of images of yourself with your arm bent in different directions (ie, elbow forward, elbow back) while still keeping the camera in more or less the same place. You can then stitch them together and your arm will disappear. Or, you can make it look like you have multiple arms.

  23. They've cropped something out. by gmanny · · Score: 1

    Notice how the picture is 4:2.87 instead of 4:3 and how it looks cropped on the left side.

  24. Re:Why are there footprints... by fm6 · · Score: 1

    Yep, obviously taken in San Bernadino county.

  25. Re:Why are there footprints... by tickticker · · Score: 1

    Not only that, but if you look in the lens of what looks like a camera on the tallest part of the rover, you can clearly see the shadow of the person taking the photo.

  26. Footprints?! by Tomahawk · · Score: 1

    Are they...em...footprints?!

  27. Group photo by CosaNostra+Pizza+Inc · · Score: 1

    Cool. Now if there's some way to get Spirit, Opportunity and Pathfinder together, it can take a group photo and send a postcard to Earth.

  28. Re:Why are there footprints... by Hognoxious · · Score: 1

    I must have chosen different Laplace transforms. I see "Paul is dead", backwards.

    --
    Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
  29. Tracks... by DarthVain · · Score: 1

    What are the scientists doing? Donuts on Mars?