A NASA probe is currently en route to a metal-rich asteroid that may be the leftover core of an ancient planetesimal. To adjust itself for the 2.2 billion-mile journey, the spacecraft had a brief encounter with Mars, providing a valuable practice run ahead of its main mission. NASA’s Psyche spacecraft successfully completed a flyby of the Red Planet on May 15, coming within 2,864 miles (4,609 kilometers) of the Martian surface. The spacecraft used Mars for a gravity assist to boost its speed and adjust its orbital plane without sparing any onboard propellant before heading directly toward the asteroid, according to NASA. During the planetary flyby, Psyche was able to capture some unique images of Mars, including views of its dusty surface. Martian crescent In the days leading up to the Martian encounter, the team behind the Psyche mission turned on the spacecraft’s instruments for calibration. The instruments included magnetometers, gamma-ray and neutron spectrometers, as well as imagers, allowing the spacecraft to send back some beautiful shots of Mars.
Psyche captured a view of a crescent Mars. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU Psyche approached Mars from a high-phase angle, capturing the Red Planet from a rare perspective. In the above image, Mars is seen as a fading crescent with its unique reddish hue appearing from below. As Psyche got closer, the crescent appeared brighter and extended farther around the planet’s disk in observations from the spacecraft’s multispectral imager. That’s because of the strong scattering of sunlight through the planet’s dusty atmosphere.
