Psyche checks out Mars on the way to Psyche
Sometimes NASA does things designed to confuse while also being awesome.
Take Psyche, for instance. This confusingly named mission to the asteroid Psyche just flew past Mars and used the Red Planet as a model for testing its multispectral imager.
This camera system can take images with 2 cameras through 7 different filters that allow it to see from the near infrared through visible light. This makes it possible to see Mars both as our eyes would see it, and also in dramatic enhanced color variations that highlight science no human could naturally see.
The Psyche spacecraft also used its other instruments to view Mars, but the results from the magnetometers and gamma-ray and neutron spectrometers are less flashy, and more… well… they did their job and showed the instruments work by matching other existing data we already had about Mars.
And knowing the spacecraft works is something to celebrate.
The Psyche mission will get to Psyche the asteroid in August 2029. This will be the first metal-rich asteroid to be visited by a spacecraft and after seeing so many rubble piles in recent years, I’m really hoping we get to see something solid and unlike anything we’ve seen before.
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This content was originally written for the EVSN podcast. Watch video episodes and check out additional content at EVSN.tv.
