APOD: Curiosity Rover at Rocknest on Mars (2012 Dec 27)

[estrass]

You mean to tell me they have this rover on Mars and this is all we get to see? Cmon'.

[bystander]

http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/msl
http://www.nasa.gov/msl
http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl

http://www.facebook.com/marscuriosity
http://www.twitter.com/marscuriosity

[Raven]

Tourists and vanity: it afflicts even our machines.

Travel all the way to an alien world, stop in the middle of an alien landscape, and take a photo of yourself.

(Well, technically, take 55 partial photos of yourself, to be stitched into one -- each time photographing where your arm isn't. But notice the shadow cast on the upper left of the wheel directly below us, center bottom of the picture, and on the ground left of the wheel. What's casting that shadow? Not the semi-conical motor to the left; its shadow is recognizable just left of that shadow directly below. By elimination, the mystery shadow is "us", the camera, directly above.)

[neufer]

Tourists and vanity: it afflicts even our machines.

Travel all the way to an alien world, stop in the middle of an alien landscape, and take a photo of yourself.

(Well, technically, take 55 partial photos of yourself, to be stitched into one -- each time photographing where your arm isn't. But notice the shadow cast on the upper left of the wheel directly below us, center bottom of the picture, and on the ground left of the wheel. What's casting that shadow? Not the semi-conical motor to the left; its shadow is recognizable just left of that shadow directly below. By elimination, the mystery shadow is "us", the camera, directly above.)

Our most cherished travel photos are always pictures of ourselves in (already fully documented) alien landscapes.

Our most cherished space photos in the future will be pictures of "ourselves" in (soon to be fully documented) alien landscapes.

[Raven]

Our most cherished space photos in the future will be pictures of "ourselves" in (soon to be fully documented) alien landscapes.

A cartoon immediately springs to mind, fully drawn on imaginary paper: airless cratered landscape with occasional tall sharp spires and a visibly curved horizon below a very active starscape -- with perhaps a Wolf-Rayet pinwheel spinning like a yin-yang medallion in the middle of the sky. On the ground, stretching forward from the camera, a blocky somewhat humanoid robot's shadow, elbows out to hold a camera. Front and center, two such robots leaning together to have their photos taken. The one on the left is raising his hand behind the head of the one on the right, two fingers extended upward in a V-shape.

(Edited to add: To be fair... the one on the right undoubtedly has scrawled on his chest, in lieu of a T-shirt, "I'm with Stupid" and an arrow pointing left.)