Some things you don't immediately notice, but they leave you wondering: Who actually takes the pictures of the Mars Rover?
A user also asked himself this question, but he doubted space travel and the universe as a whole, including the Mars Rover. His somewhat difficult-to-read comment was published by Professor Schwurbelstein on Facebook :
https://www.facebook.com/ProfessorSchwurbelstein/photos/a.150366362291139/419868248674281/?type=3&theater
For reasons of accessibility, here is the important text excerpt again in a grammatically correct form:
“Who is filming the Mars Rover? Is there a person walking alongside, or how can they show us the entire Mars Rover on Mars, and then in the perspective as if a person with a camera is walking alongside?”
As confusing as the actual comment seems, the question itself is justified, because in the Mars Rover photos you never actually see the arm holding the camera.

Where is the camera arm?
The trick with these photos is that this is not a single snapshot, but rather a composite of dozens of images!
The Mars rover “Curiosity” moves its arm and camera around and over itself and the ground, taking pictures from all angles. These images are then stitched together to form a complete image, just like panoramic images. This is also necessary because the Mars Rover's arm is not long enough to be able to take a complete "selfie".
For example, here you can see what such an image looks like before it was trimmed into a rectangle:

You can see how this works technically in a video animation here:
https://www.instagram.com/p/6k4pUMFbys/
By the way, the Mars Rover doesn't take these selfies for fun, because everyone takes selfies! The individual images are very important for the operations managers, as they can better see whether, for example, the tires or certain parts of “Curiosity” have accumulated dust or signs of wear.
[mk_ad]
You can see many more pictures of Mars and “Curiosity” in NASA’s picture gallery . In some of the “selfies” you can actually still see a little of the arm or see its shadow on the floor.
Curiosity even has its own Twitter account , where beautiful photos and interesting information are constantly posted:
Just your friendly neighborhood robotic geochemist checking in with an update from the field: https://t.co/N6oUzKk8Bp
PS This selfie was stitched together from 57 individual frames. This video explains how I took them and why my arm isn't in the shot 🤳 https://t.co/ttkooHyQoK pic.twitter.com/cOZBPNpSP6
— Curiosity Rover (@MarsCuriosity) October 24, 2019
Conclusion
This should now hopefully clarify why the “selfies” often look as if someone is walking next to the Mars Rover: They are image compositions of dozens of images, with the images being taken in such a way that your arm is not, or only rarely, in the composition see parts of it.
Article image: Shutterstockk / By SergeyDV
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