Verma said that an image from Sojourner, Nasa’s first Mars rover, sparked her interest within the US space agency. Verma worked as a driver for Nasa’s Opportunity and Curiosity rovers and helped to make Curiosity’s first selfie, which was taken on October 31, 2012. “When we took that first selfie, we didn’t realize these would become so iconic and routine,” she said.
In a video posted by Nasa’s JPL, Verma said that the way the rover takes a selfie may be a “little more complex” than taking a selfie from our smartphones. The rover uses the WATSON (Wide Angle Topographic Sensor for Operations and eNgineering) camera attached at the top of the robotic arm. But the WATSON camera was designed to require close-up images of rocks for scientific analysis and not wide-angle images.
Since even the complete extension of the arm can’t cover the whole rover during a single image, engineers had to command the rover to require dozens of individual images then stitch them together to supply the selfie. to try to to that, the engineers attempt to hold the WATSON camera sensor within the same position to require different images.
“The reason you do not see the robotic arm within the selfie is because it's moving between the various image frames that we are taking, and that we include enough overlap between the pictures in order that once we stitch them together, we do not need to include the arm,” said Verma.
