Space selfie

Lore & Background

The history of space selfies begins with astronauts. The first known space selfie during an EVA was taken by Buzz Aldrin on the Gemini 12 mission, though an earlier shot inside the capsule was taken on Gemini 10 by Michael Collins. Early space selfies after the word 'selfie' was first used in 2002, taken without assistance from another astronaut, include those by Donald Pettit (Expedition 6, January 2003) and Stephen Robinson (STS-114, August 3, 2005). A notable selfie by Japanese astronaut Akihiko Hoshide during a spacewalk on September 5, 2012, became a viral phenomenon after Commander Chris Hadfield uploaded it to Twitter on September 30, 2013. Coincidentally, Oxford University Press announced 'selfie' as the word of the year for 2013 in November of that year.

Machine space selfies date back to 1976 when the Viking 2 lander took a photo of its deck on Mars, though Discovery News did not consider it a true selfie. In 1989, the Galileo spacecraft took a fuzzy, warped selfie using its near-infrared mapping spectrometer. In 2010, JAXA's IKAROS ejected two wireless cameras solely for 'hand free' space selfies. DARPA's Orbital Express captured perhaps the first space selfie by an autonomous robot on July 22, 2007, showing a family portrait of two spacecraft. The Curiosity rover, which landed on Mars in 2012, used its MAHLI camera to take selfies, with its first on September 7, 2012, being blurry due to a closed dust cover. Discovery News called it the King of Selfies in 2013. The Opportunity rover took a selfie in February 2018 using its MER Microscopic Imager, stitching out-of-focus shots.

Indirect methods allow people on Earth to take space selfies. The ARKYD mission would have displayed donor photos on a screen on a telescope, with Earth as background. SpaceBooth, a Belgian startup, launched a pico-satellite in 2014 to project uploaded images in front of a window. In November 2019, Spelfie was launched, allowing users to take a selfie at the exact time a satellite captures their location, using Airbus satellites, demonstrated in a BBC documentary.

Reader's Guide

Space selfies are notable for their role in documenting human and robotic exploration of space, often becoming viral social media phenomena. The article highlights how astronaut selfies, such as Akihiko Hoshide's 2012 photo, gained widespread attention after being shared on Twitter, coinciding with the Oxford English Dictionary naming 'selfie' the word of the year in 2013. Machine selfies, particularly those by the Curiosity rover, have been recognized as authentic self-portraits, with Discovery News dubbing Curiosity the 'King of Selfies' in 2013. The indirect methods, such as Spelfie, extend the concept to people on Earth, allowing them to participate in space imagery. The article notes that space selfies serve purposes beyond social media, including equipment testing (e.g., Galileo's NIMS selfie) and mission documentation (e.g., Orbital Express family portrait). The Opportunity rover's 2018 selfie marked 5,000 sols on Mars, using a camera not designed for self-portraits, requiring stitched, compressed images. The legacy of space selfies lies in their blend of technical achievement and public engagement, bridging space exploration with everyday social media culture.

Did You Know?

• The Curiosity rover's first space selfie on another planet was taken on September 7, 2012, with a blurry image due to a closed dust cover.
• The word 'selfie' was named word of the year for 2013 by the Oxford English Dictionary.
• The Spelfie app, launched in November 2019, uses Airbus satellites to let users take a selfie at the moment a satellite captures their location.