NASA Perseverance rover snaps epic Mars selfie with Ingenuity helicopter as guest star

The Perseverance rover has been busy snapping pictures of itself (including this charming look at its "face"), but now we have the complete view. NASA on Wednesday released a glorious, full-body selfie showing the rover with its Mars companion, the Ingenuity helicopter. The image highlights the rover, which is still looking pretty clean after touching down in mid-February, and the small experimental helicopter Ingenuity. The chopper is preparing to make its first test flight no sooner than Sunday. 

The rover used the Watson camera mounted on its robotic arm to capture the 62 images used for the selfie. The picture-snapping marathon took place on April 6. To get a sense of scale, the helicopter is located about 13 feet (4 meters) away from its wheeled companion.

The Perseverance team tweeted a slightly different version of the selfie in GIF form that shows the rover's "head" moving from looking at Ingenuity to looking at the camera. 

The rover dropped the Ingenuity helicopter off on the ground over the weekend and will be watching as the daring little rotorcraft attempts to make the first powered, controlled flight on another planet. NASA hopes to receive images of the flight along with engineering data on the rotorcraft's performance.

The selfie is a fitting tribute to two machines doing pioneering work on Mars.

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