NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover does everything in style. The rover recently collected two rock samples on the Red Planet and placed them into tubes that will later be brought back to Earth. That achievement was celebrated by a double-selfie celebration.

Now, NASA has released two of the rover’s selfies, one showing the rover “looking” at the rock it drilled to collect the samples, and the second selfie shows the rover “looking at the camera.” The difference is in the position of the instruments mounted at the top of their mast.

Capturing history through the lens

The rock sampled by the Perseverance rover is called “Rochette.” The selfie comes from September 10, and the drill holes can be clearly seen as two dark circles in the rock. The samples are now safely placed and the space agency hopes to send a future mission to collect them. The rover will continue to collect more samples as takes forward its exploration.

Each version of the portrait is made from 57 images merged together into a full view of Perseverance and its surroundings. The rover used a camera on the end of its robotic arm to gather all the snaps together.

Hunting for ancient life

One of the main aims of the Perseverance rover is to hunt for signs of ancient microbial life in the Jezero Crater, a region that once hosted a lake. The rover is studying its surroundings, and it’s doing all of it while looking cool. It was the best time to capture a selfie to celebrate a historic event in another world.

The Perseverance rover landed on the Red Planet in February 2021 and has been exploring the Martian surface since then, beaming back images and audio, as well as preparing for its sample collections. Unlike NASA’s previous missions, Perseverance brought along a chopper buddy called Ingenuity, which became the first aircraft to take a controlled flight on another planet. The mini helicopter was sent as a test device to see if rotorcraft could help future rovers plan their routes more efficiently and safely.