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NASA’s Perseverance Rover Snaps Westernmost Selfie

NASA’s Perseverance Rover Snaps Westernmost Selfie

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NASA’s Perseverance Rover Snaps Westernmost Selfie

The head of a robotic rover looks down at a rocky outcrop in the foreground. The dusty, orange-red Martian surface stretches away toward the crater rim in the distance. The Sun seems to bloom in a hazy sky.

PIA26752

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NASA’s Perseverance Rover Snaps Westernmost Selfie

PNG (178.16 MB)

PIA26752 Figure A

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PIA26752 Animation (.gif)

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PIA26752 Animation (.mp4)

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Description

NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover took this selfie on March 11, 2026, the 1,797th Martian day, or sol, of the mission, during the rover’s deepest push west beyond Jezero Crater. Assembled from 61 individual images, the selfie shows Perseverance training its mast on the “Arethusa” rocky outcrop after creating a whitish circular abrasion patch. The crater’s western rim of Jezero Crater is visible in the background.

The head of a robotic rover looks toward the viewer, above a rocky outcrop in the foreground. The dusty, orange-red Martian surface stretches away toward the crater rim in the distance. The Sun seems to bloom in a hazy sky.

Figure A

Figure A is a version of the selfie in which the rover appears to be looking at the camera.

Animation (.gif)

Here is a GIF combining the main image and Figure A, in which the rover appears to look up and down.

The selfie is composed of images taken by the WATSON (Wide Angle Topographic Sensor for Operations and eNgineering) camera on the end of the rover’s robotic arm. The images were stitched together after being sent back to Earth.

WATSON is part of an instrument called SHERLOC (Scanning Habitable Environments with Raman & Luminescence for Organics & Chemicals). WATSON was built by Malin Space Science Systems (MSSS) in San Diego and is operated jointly by MSSS and JPL.

The rover’s process for taking a selfie is explained in this video.

NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which is managed for the agency by Caltech in Pasadena, California, built and manages operations of the Perseverance rover.

For more about Perseverance:

https://science.nasa.gov/mission/mars-2020-perseverance/

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