What you're looking at is a photo from the surface of an asteroid… taken by a hopping robot !

This mind-blowing image was captured on September 23, 2018, by MINERVA-II-1 Rover-1B, a tiny autonomous rover deployed by Japan’s JAXA spacecraft onto asteroid Ryugu. What makes this moment even crazier? Right after taking the photo, the rover HOPPED to another location using rotating motors—because low gravity means wheels won’t work!

What are the odds we’d get a selfie from a flying rock millions of kilometers away?

#asteroid #spaceexploration #jaxa #ryugu #spacephoto #robotrover #minervaii #sciencefacts #spaceisawesome #outerspace