"My battery is low and it's getting dark.” 

These were the last words of Opportunity, a Mars rover that roamed the surface of the red planet for 15 years (5,000 days) before succumbing to a dust storm. Well, it didn’t exactly “succumb” — rovers rely on solar energy, and when one of Mars' long and intense storms blocked out the sun for too long, Opportunity ceased to function. “It fell silent,” one NASA scientist said. 
Hearing all of this narrated in a Youtube video, I find my attention gathering details that produce, in sum, an utter fiction: The rover is our fearless protagonist, and its expedition is a heroic narrative that moves along the well-worn skids of human drama. I know this story! Even in this unintentional “selfie,” in which Opportunity captures its own shadow while photographing one of Mars’s largest craters, what stands out is its familiarity: the nondescript reddish-brown dirt at Opportunity’s feet (wheels?) and the hazy blue of the distant mountains. This could be a road trip through Nevada. The image's faded tone even has the warmth of an old family photograph. These are obviously projections — the image is from Mars, for goodness' sake, and the rover is a mere machine. Nevertheless, I can't help but think of that wheeled cart of scientific sensors as eminently courageous, or behold this "selfie" as a poignant moment of conscious self-regard on the brink of Opportunity's demise.

To read more about NASA’s Opportunity, see here.