Meet Curiosity: a selfie taking rover from NASA

NASA’s car-sized spacecraft called the Curiosity rover has been exploring Mars since August 2012 and like any other tourist in an exotic location, has taken a selfie.

The image is a combination of 57 pictures taken of the Namib Dune on Jan 19 via the Curiosity rover.

Curiosity has been exploring sand dunes on mars since December 2015 when it entered the Bagnold dune.

The rover also managed to take three different samples of the dune around the same time it took the selfie.

From NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Michael McHenry said, “It used to be beautiful difficult to power into the sloping sand and then turn on the sand into the position that used to be the very best to study the dunes

Unfortunately, complications arose while Curiosity was procession the third sample. To be precise, an actuator in the sample-processing device did not work as expected, though the team behind Curiosity is trying to to find the reason behind the malfunction.

"It stopped moving the actuator and halted further use of the arm and sampling system" said Steve Lee, deputy project manager for Curiosity at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

Thought these antics may seem like they are pulled right out of the Pixar animated movie ‘WALL·E’, scientists will use this information to determine speed and route of wind on Mars while the selfie will tell scientists the wear and tear of Curiosity.    

Reachers are currently determining the next step for the “fun loving” Curiosity rover.