The latest curiosity from the Red Planet is an image made with the self-timer: the first "space" selfie comes from Mars: the photo of the Chinese rover.
In 2013, Oxford Dictionaries, the leading historical dictionary of the English language, decreed "selfie" the word of the year. In 2014, perhaps the most famous selfie in history, taken on the Hollywood red carpet on Oscar night, portrayed a group of super VIPs (including Jennifer Lawrence, Meryl Streep, Bradley Cooper, Brad Pitt and Kevin Spacey) and recorded a record number of likes and shares on social networks. In 2015, at the "Olimpico" stadium in Rome, Francesco Totti celebrated a new record of goals and the double of the tie in the derby against Lazio with an exultation that has remained in the memory of the fans: a selfie under the Curva Sud, in frenzy for the feat of the Captain.
After these episodes (and many others), the success of the selfie seemed destined to mark the pace. And instead, after years of "normalization", the self-timer has crossed a new frontier: the latest noteworthy selfie is far more surprising than those coming from the Dolby Theatre or from inside a sports field, since it is, to all intents and purposes, an extraterrestrial shot.
What appears in the selfie of the Chinese rover Zhurong
The photo comes from none other than Mars. And to take it was the Chinese rover Zhurong, landed on the surface of the Red Planet last May 15. In the image, the flag of the Asian giant appears in plain sight, along with the landing platform and the rover, which may have reminded someone of the protagonist of "Short Circuit", film landed in theaters in 1986 and broadcast repeatedly on TV in subsequent years. The plot of "Short Circuit" revolved precisely around a sentient robot, of which, at a certain point, the other protagonists manage to demonstrate the emotional dimension (with a joke). And indeed the "selfie" of the Martian rover alludes to a purely human characteristic (vanity) making it all the more remarkable and with contours, well, science fiction.
How the selfie from Mars was made
The selfie of the rover on Mars were shown during a ceremony in Beijing. In the background you can see the barren scenery of the fourth planet from the Sun, already observed in the slides obtained thanks to previous space missions: what stands out, however, is just the unusual explorer at the center of the composition. The selfie was made possible thanks to a camera that Zhurong can detach from the main body and use remotely.
This is certainly not the only image, among those from Mars, which has caused much discussion: they have also caused a stir these clouds and some strange formations detected in the furrows of the rover that would even think of mushrooms.
Giuseppe Giordano