APOD Publishes Image of Rover on Vera Rubin Ridge
04.10.2026, 15:00·
COLLECTED AND VERIFIED AUTOMATICALLY
The Astronomy Picture of the Day (APOD) website has published its latest daily space image — this time a self-portrait of a Mars rover taken on a ridge named after American astronomer Vera Rubin, renowned for her discoveries in dark matter. Vera Rubin Ridge is located in Gale Crater on Mars and is being explored by NASA's Curiosity rover.
APOD is one of NASA's most popular science education resources, publishing daily images of the Universe with explanations from professional astronomers. The project covers a wide range of topics — from images of distant galaxies to detailed photographs of the surfaces of Solar System planets taken by spacecraft.
The image, called a "selfie," is a composite image assembled from numerous individual frames captured by the rover's robotic arm-mounted camera. Such self-portraits are regularly used by scientists not only to document the condition of the spacecraft, but also to study the geological context of the imaging location.
The ridge is named in honor of Vera Rubin in recognition of her contributions to astronomy — she provided some of the first compelling evidence for the existence of dark matter in the Universe through her study of galaxy rotation. The publication of such images continues APOD's long-standing tradition of introducing a wide audience to the latest achievements in space exploration and making astronomy accessible to all who are interested in the science of the cosmos.
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