Here’s the full MastCam frame showing the reflection in that sapphire window over the SHERLOC lens (you may need to zoom in to see the reflection of Percy’s “head” or mast):
God I love this rover so much, I zoomed in and thought “hi Percy!”
I want to see astronauts on Mars as much as anyone. That being said, I think we can all see that remotely operated rovers have their place, and they will even after humans visit. It’s a big planet, after all. And they’ve taught us so much by “living” on Mars for years and years, which the first humans to touch down won’t do. And that’s before you consider how important Percy’s samples are. Beyond all that, though, it’s easy to see from images like this why we’re so attached to our rovers:
I wonder if the people who want to defund these missions realize that they’re personally less popular and lovable than these robots…
Right? Like Percy is our little science guy that we built and programmed and sent to Mars to do science and tell us about what mars is like and that’s just so cool to me. He’s like our version of WALL-E in a way.