Curiosity Rover Celebrates One Year on Mars With a Selfie

NASA's Mars Curiosity Rover has spent exactly one Martian year -- 687 Earth days -- on the Red Planet.

To celebrate the occasion, the rover took a very lonely selfie, with the barren Martian landscape in the background. The "selfie" is actually a composite of dozens of images taken in April and May 2014 by the Mars Hand Lens Imager, a camera located at the end of rover's robotic arm.

According to NASA, the rover has accomplished the mission's main goal: determining whether Mars once offered conditions that could sustain life.

The rover used the camera at the end of its arm in April and May 2014 to take dozens of component images combined into a self-portrait where the rover drilled into a sandstone target called Windjana. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS

Its findings include an ancient riverbed, found in August 2012, as well as samples proving that the Martian Gale Crater was once a lakebed that contained water as well as other essential elemental ingredients for life.

The rover's final destination is Mount Sharp, where it will search for further clues to whether life ever existed in the area.

You can follow Curiosity's adventures on Facebook and Twitter.