The Curiosity rover has been on Mars for one Martian year. It celebrated by taking a selfie

 

By Abby Phillip June 24 at 10:27 AM

NASA’s Mars Curiosity Rover captures a selfie to mark a full Martian year — 687 Earth days — spent exploring the Red Planet. (NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS)

NASA’s Mars Curiosity rover is celebrating its Marsiversary — one whole Martian year on the Red Planet — by taking a selfie.

Rover stretched out its robotic arm and took a series of pictures of itself Tuesday, then stitched them together to produce the photo above.

Since the rover first landed on Mars in August 2012, it has been a successful 687 Earth days on the planet for Curiosity, according to NASA.

It met its main goal of finding out whether Mars could ever have been habitable to life when it drilled into a rock near its landing site and discovered that it had once been a lake bed, with mild water.

NASA’s scientists and engineers also released a video explaining what’s next for the rover:http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=SSf1HenQhWs

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2014/06/24/the-curiosity-rover-has-been-on-mars-for-one-martian-year-it-celebrated-by-taking-a-selfie/