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Dust Devil Photobombs Perseverance’s Selfie

NASA's Perseverance took this selfie on May 10, 2025. The small puff of dust left of center and below the horizon line is a dust devil.
PIA26574
Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
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Description

NASA's Perseverance rover took this selfie on May 10, 2025, marking its 1,500th Martian day, or sol, exploring the Red Planet. A dust devil twirls in the background, about 3 miles (5 kilometers) away, to the left of the rover. The small dark hole in the rock in front of the rover is the borehole made when Perseverance collected a sample dubbed "Bell Island."

The selfie is composed of 59 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. The selfie was further processed to improve visual contrast and accentuate color differences.

WATSON, part of an instrument called SHERLOC (Scanning Habitable Environments with Raman & Luminescence for Organics & Chemicals), was built by Malin Space Science Systems (MSSS) in San Diego and is operated jointly by MSSS and NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California.

Figure A is a version of the selfie in which the rover is looking down at the borehole.

click here for Figure A for PIA26574
Figure A

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Click here for a GIF or here for a video combining the main image and Figure A, in which the rover appears to look up and down.

Figure B is a cropped, annotated version of the selfie highlighting some of the rover's components.

click here for Figure B for PIA26574
Figure B

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Figure C is an annotated version with an abridged number of annotations.

click here for Figure C for PIA26574
Figure C

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For more about Perseverance:
https://science.nasa.gov/mission/mars-2020-perseverance/