Mars Perseverance rover takes a selfie with Ingenuity helicopter ahead of historic flight

To the delight of social media users, NASA's Perseverance rover used a camera on the end of its robotic arm to snap a selfie with the Mars Ingenuity helicopter this week ahead of its historic flight mission.

Shown about 13 feet apart in the pictures taken on April 6, 2021, or the 48th Martian day of the mission, the rover used its WATSON (Wide Angle Topographic Sensor for Operations and Engineering) camera on the SHERLOC (Scanning Habitable Environments with Raman and Luminescence for Organics and Chemicals) instrument. In a release, NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) said Wednesday that the selfie had been constructed using 62 individual images -- taken in sequence -- that were stitched together. It noted that the Curiosity Mars rover, which landed on the red planet in 2011, takes similar "selfies."