NASA's Perseverance rover has taken its fair share of selfies since landing on Mars in February 2021.
The rover is scouring the Red Planet looking for signs of life and liquid water, enabling planetary scientists to piece together Mars's history.
On 10 May 2025, a dust devil formation photobombed Perseverance rover's selfie as it was parked in an area named 'Witch Hazel Hill'.
More Perseverance discoveries
The region is on the rim of Jezero Crater, thought to be an ancient lake on Mars, which Perseverance has been exploring since landing.
Also visible in the selfies is the 'Bell Island' borehole, where Perseverance has collected a sample of Mars that will later be returned to Earth.
Dust devil selfie
A popular question – and a good one, at that – often asked about selfies captured by Mars rovers is "who took it?"
Selfies of Mars rovers show the rover in full, and in isolation, with no apparent mechanism holding the camera.
That's because, unlike the selfies we take with our smartphones, Mars rover selfies are composites made of lots of images stitched together.
This Perseverance selfie was created on Earth by NASA scientists, using 59 individual images collected by the WATSON (Wide Angle Topographic Sensor for Operations and eNgineering) camera at the end of the rover's robotic arm.
Then three more were captured in order to incorporate the borehole into the final selfie.
"To get that selfie look, each WATSON image has to have its own unique field of view," says Megan Wu, a Perseverance imaging scientist from Malin Space Science Systems in San Diego.
"That means we had to make 62 precision movements of the robotic arm. The whole process takes about an hour, but it’s worth it."
In the distance, a dust devil whirls by, an unexpected bonus and a brief glimpse of what it might be like to experience conditions on Mars, if you were standing on the surface.
"Having the dust devil in the background makes it a classic. This is a great shot," says Wu.
Mars dust devils explained
Dust devils are a frequent occurrence on the surface of Mars.
They develop when sunlight heats the Martian ground, which in turn warms the air just above it.
This causes columns of warm air to rise, spinning as they do so.
As this warmer air rises into the cooler atmosphere above, more surrounding air rushes in to replace it. The incoming air starts to rotate as it moves.
As the rotating air continues to rise, it accelerates due to angular momentum, the same principle that causes a figure skater to spin faster when pulling their arms in.
And as it spins, the vortex draws in Martian dust, giving rise to what we call a dust devil on Mars.
The science of selfies
Mars rover selfies may seem like a bit of fun, but they also provide scientists on Earth with vital information about both the Red Planet and the rover itself.
"The rover self-portrait at the Witch Hazel Hill area gives us a great view of the terrain and the rover hardware," says Justin Maki, Perseverance imaging lead at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, which manages the mission.
"The well-illuminated scene and relatively clear atmosphere allowed us to capture a dust devil located 3 miles to the north in Neretva Vallis."
The selfie gives the team a chance to see how the rover is doing, whether its instruments are in good shape and how much Martian dust is covering it.
At the time the selfie was captured, Perseverance had studied 37 rocks and boulders and travelled over 22 miles (36km).
"After 1,500 sols, we may be a bit dusty, but our beauty is more than skin deep," says Art Thompson, Perseverance project manager at JPL.
"Our multi-mission radioisotope thermoelectric generator is giving us all the power we need. All our systems and subsystems are in the green and clicking along, and our amazing instruments continue to provide data that will feed scientific discoveries for years to come."
