malformalady:
Leucistic Texas ratsnake(Elaphe obsoleta lindheimeri). The Texas Ratsnake is a nonvenomous subspecies of rat snake found in the United States, primarily within the state of Texas, but its range extends into Louisiana, Arkansas and Oklahoma.
“The answer to who snapped the rover’s picture lies not with extraterrestrials but with the imagination of three men, precision robotics from 130 million miles away, days of planning on Earth, and a bit of artistic Photoshopping.”
“The actual photo shoot took place in October over two Martian days, known as sols, using the Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) camera, which sits in a turret at the end of the rover’s nearly seven-foot-long (two-meter) arm.”
“Once the rover transmitted the images back to Earth, Ravine and a coworker set out to make a mosaic compilation of them. There were challenges galore, but none quite so great as getting the long arm of the rover out of the picture.”
“”Actually, there weren’t that many images with the arm in them because of how we positioned the arm,” Ravine explained. “It’s like if you hold a camera out in front of you with your elbow crooked and shoot—what you’ll probably get is your face and top of your body including your shoulder, but most of your arm is out of the frame.”“
(via williamvalle)
(Source: neveerforget)
(Source: bananazura)
