Cool photo. Except I’m wondering HOW they took that photo. At first I figured it has a long sampling “arm” or something with a camera - but there doesn’t appear to be anything extending from the rover.
Hard to believe that they could re-do the old Hollywood movie set of the moon “landings” to look like Mars! ;)
In answer to your observation regarding an arm. .from the snippet:
“reconstructed from 55 frames while digitally removing an extended arm.”
I noticed the arm was missing, too, but then I read the paragraph.
The “self portrait” info from the web (they don’t say, but I guess they must have edited out the arm):
On Sol 84 (Oct. 31, 2012), NASA’s Curiosity rover used the Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) to capture this set of 55 high-resolution images, which were stitched together to create this full-color self-portrait.
The mosaic shows the rover at “Rocknest,” the spot in Gale Crater where the mission’s first scoop sampling took place. Four scoop scars can be seen in the regolith in front of the rover....
Self-portraits like this one document the state of the rover and allow mission engineers to track changes over time, such as dust accumulation and wheel wear. Due to its location on the end of the robotic arm, only MAHLI (among the rover’s 17 cameras) is able to image some parts of the craft, including the port-side wheels.
Your right, how was this done?
“Hi! Welcome to Marsworld. I’ll just take a quick photo of you. Here’s your number. You can pick up your photo on the way out of the park. Have a Marsworld day!”
Those footprints to the left might have something to do with it.