NASA's Mars Perseverance snaps a selfie as a Martian dust devil blows by

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CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — The latest selfie by NASA's Perseverance rover at Mars has captured an unexpected guest: a Martian dust devil.

Resembling a small pale puff, the twirling dust devil popped up 3 miles (5 kilometers) behind the rover during this month’s photo shoot. Released Wednesday, the selfie is a composite of 59 images taken by the camera on the end of the rover’s robotic arm, according to NASA.

It took an hour to perform all the arm movements necessary to gather the images, “but it's worth it,” said Megan Wu, an imaging scientist from Malin Space Science Systems, which built the camera.

“Having the dust devil in the background makes it a classic," Wu said in a statement.

The picture — which also shows the rover's latest sample borehole on the surface — marks 1,500 sols or Martian days for Perseverance. That's equivalent to 1,541 days on Earth.

Perseverance is covered with red dust, the result of drilling into dozens of rocks. Launched in 2020, it’s collecting samples for eventual return to Earth from Jezero Crater, an ancient lakebed and river delta that could hold clues of any past microbial life.

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