NASA's Psyche spacecraft returns unfamiliar views of a familiar world

Source: Ars Technica

Mars flyby observations

NASA noted that, as a bonus, the Psyche spacecraft captured Mars images from a rare perspective. The spacecraft approached Mars from a high phase angle—viewing the planet from the side opposite the Sun—making it appear as a thin crescent as Psyche moved in for the encounter. The wispiness of the thin Martian atmosphere was on full display, with sunlight shining through diffuse clouds of dust suspended dozens of miles over the sharp edge of the planet’s rust‑colored surface.

Credit: NASA/JPL‑Caltech/ASU

This is the first view of a nearly “full Mars” as seen by NASA’s Psyche spacecraft shortly after its closest approach on 15 May 2026. The view extends from the south polar cap northwards to the Valles Marineris canyon system and beyond.

As Psyche zoomed past the red planet, its cameras captured a wide‑angle overhead view of Mars’ southern polar ice cap. Jim Bell, who leads the Psyche imager instrument team at Arizona State University, said the spacecraft took thousands of images during the encounter. The observations will help scientists calibrate and characterize the performance of the cameras.

Instrument observations

Psyche’s magnetometer may have detected a signature of the solar wind interacting with Mars’ upper atmosphere or its remnant magnetic field, and its spectrometers were tuned to measure the chemical composition of the Martian surface underneath the spacecraft’s flight path.

Although numerous other missions are continuously exploring Mars, the primary value of Psyche’s flyby data lies in instrument calibration—comparing these observations with archival data from other Mars missions.

Future mission goals

The real payoff of the Psyche mission will come in three years, when the probe arrives at its primary target: asteroid Psyche, an object roughly the size of Massachusetts that is rich in iron, nickel, and likely other metals that we currently know only as a fuzzy blob through telescopes. The spacecraft will have more than two years to survey the asteroid, far longer than the fleeting glimpse it obtained of Mars.