Great, our billion dollar robot is up the creek without a paddle.

It's all a ruse anyway. They have a video crew in the Mojave desert, grandsons of the crew that staged the moon landing. It's all on the internet...

Life on Mars? Maybe not ... NASA downplays discovery.

From the Sydney Morning Herald and The Reg.

"We're getting data from SAM," he said. "This data is gonna be one for the history books. It's looking really good."

another one

Mars Rover Curiosity

Explain this, then...

Hello, folks, its JPL. They are not taking pictures with Brownies. They have stuff that makes PhotoShop look like Dageurrotype.

Either NASA released the picture by mistake and now has a big palm heel imprint on its collective forehead, or its a composite, with the arm in different positions, the data from clear shots painting out the data of the arm.

In another in the same series of photos, JPL is not saying whether this one shows evidence of life:

That pic sends Chiles down my spine!

Here is how it was done.

Note: selfies is a pommy term for self-portrait, though usually just the naughty bits.