KEY POINTS

  • The "selfie" by Curiosity was taken last October
  • Curiosity has been at the site since July
  • The Perseverance rover is on its way to join Curiosity in exploring Mars

NASA's Curiosity has a new selfie, and this time it was taken at a site called "Mary Anning," named after a valued scientist. Soon, Curiosity won't be the only one exploring the Red Planet.

According to a NASA news release related to the new image, the location where the selfie was taken is named after the 19th Century paleontologist who is described as "the greatest fossilist the world ever knew" according to Cambridge University Press, but whose findings of marine-reptile fossils remained largely unknown simply "because of her gender and class."

The site was named after her because of its potential to reveal new details about the planet's ancient environment, NASA explained, perhaps much like how Anning made many great discoveries in her field.

Curiosity has been at the site since July and its latest selfie was taken on Oct. 25, the 2,922nd Martian day of the rover's mission. For this selfie, image specialists stitched together 59 pictures taken by a camera called the Mars Hand Lens Imager that’s located at the end of Curiosity's robotic arm.

In the image, one can see Curiosity appearing to "pose" for its selfie and the vast, reddish landscape of Mars behind it.

Curiosity Rover Selfie
Image: Curiosity rover's selfie at a place on Mars called Mary Anning. The images used to stitch this photo together were taken on Oct. 25, 2020. NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS

The agency also shared a close-up shot of the image that showed three tiny drill holes close to the rover. These, NASA explained, are from when Curiosity took samples in its search for organic material in the Martian rocks. But analysis of the samples will take months to interpret.

Curiosity Rover Selfie
Pictured: The three drill holes made by Curiosity rover at the Mary Anning site. NASA scientists dubbed them "Mary Anning," "Mary Anning 3" and "Groken." NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS

Soon, Curiosity won’t be the only rover to explore the Red Planet as the new Perseverance rover is already well on its way to Mars, reaching the midway mark of its journey in October. In fact, NASA even noted this week that the Perseverance rover is just 100 days and 166 million miles away from landing on the Red Planet.

But for now, Curiosity is the only active rover on Mars since the previous rovers, Spirit, Opportunity and Sojourner, have all completed their missions and lost contact with Earth since.

As for Curiosity, it has been climbing Mount Sharp this year and its next target is a site higher up in the mountain, which NASA said the team is hoping to reach by 2021.

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