NASA and Google have released a new collaborative video that imagines what it would look like if NASA’s Perseverance rover signed up to Google Photos. The short vid is equal parts celebration of what the plucky rover and his pal the Ingenuity helicopter have achieved over the last six months and an advertisement for Google Photos. There’s something very charming about this anthropomorphism.
When you’re in a new land, you can’t help but take lots of pictures. In my six months as a Martian resident, I’ve built up quite a collection. See all my photos here, and even upvote your favorites to become Image of the Week: https://t.co/Ex1QDo3eC2 https://t.co/gsYF55bczE
— NASA's Perseverance Mars Rover (@NASAPersevere) August 18, 2021
Yes, it’s already been six months since Perseverance landed on the Red Planet and started snapping pics with its array of cameras. In this video, we see what it would look like if the rover uploaded them all to its Google Photos account – if it had one.
Perseverance in its Sunday best
WALL-E fans will no doubt recognise Jerry Herman’s Put On Your Sunday Clothes as the backing for the video that shows off some of Google Photos’ many features. Like sorting the many photos into categories like “shadow selfies,” “landscapes,” “rocks,” “additional rocks.” It’s no surprise that rocks and dunes feature heavily.
The search feature also made an appearance, but the search terms “water” and “Martians” did not, unfortunately. Well, not yet, anyway.
Perseverance’s crisp landing footage from its touchdown on 18 February is featured. In the “people and pets” category, NASA’s Ingenuity helicopter appears, as does the Curiosity rover. A location-based feature is also seen that shows you where you were when a picture was taken — if you’ve got that enabled in your camera app, obviously.
While the Perseverance continues to rover around, NASA has a few other projects in the works that might give us a glimpse at other planets, Saturn and Titan.
Here’s the video, available in 4K if you’d like.
