{"id":93240,"date":"2025-08-24T22:19:11","date_gmt":"2025-08-24T22:19:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/93240\/"},"modified":"2025-08-24T22:19:11","modified_gmt":"2025-08-24T22:19:11","slug":"see-that-tiny-dot-thats-us-from-290-million-km-away-spacecraft-spies-earth-and-moon-on-its-journey-to-asteroid","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/93240\/","title":{"rendered":"See that tiny dot? That’s us, from 290 million km away. Spacecraft spies Earth and Moon on its journey to asteroid"},"content":{"rendered":"

This image captured by NASA’s Psyche spacecraft<\/a> shows Earth and our Moon from a distance of 290 million km (180 million miles) away.<\/p>\n

The images were captured on 20 and 23 July 2025 during one of the Psyche spacecraft’s checks of its science instruments.<\/p>\n

More amazing Chandra observations<\/p>\n

\"ACredit: NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory-Caltech\/Malin Space Science Systems\/Texas A&M University. Source: NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory.<\/p>\n

Multiple long exposures of up to 10 seconds were captured to create the final image, showing our home planet and natural satellite as tiny specks against the blackness of space.<\/p>\n

If you’ve ever observed a planet such as Venus or Mars and noted which constellation it’s in at that moment in time, consider this.<\/p>\n

In this image, Earth and the Moon are located within the constellation Aries, as the background starfield shows.<\/p>\n

If an extra-terrestrial astronomer were looking at us, they might talk about ‘that little blue planet currently in Aries’.<\/p>\n

\"EarthEarth and the Moon, as seen by the Psyche spacecraft on 23 July 2025 from a distance of 290 million km (180 million miles). Credit: NASA\/JPL-Caltech\/ASU
\nAbout Psyche<\/p>\n

The Psyche spacecraft launched on 13 October 2023<\/a> on its way to a metal-rich asteroid, also called Psyche<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Asteroids<\/a> are remnants left over from the formation of the Solar System, and so studying one up close can tell scientists a lot about how Earth and the other planets that orbit the Sun formed.<\/p>\n

A gravity assist fly-by of Mars in 2026 is planned to give the spacecraft enough energy to reach its target asteroid in the summer of 2029.<\/p>\n

\"Artist\u2019sArtist\u2019s concept of metal-rich asteroid 16 Psyche, located in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. Credit: NASA\/JPL-Caltech\/ASU
\nAbout Psyche’s Earth image<\/p>\n

The\u00a0image of Earth and the Moon was captured by Psyche as part of a routine test of its science instruments.<\/p>\n

Psyche’s multispectral imager\u00a0instrument is a pair of cameras equipped with filters and telescope lenses, designed to photograph asteroid Psyche\u2019s surface in different wavelengths of light.<\/p>\n

That’s because the colour and shape of the asteroid’s spectrum can reveal details about what it\u2019s made of.<\/p>\n

Psyche scientists hope the mission will help them understand more about the formation of rocky planets with metallic cores, including Earth.<\/p>\n

They choose targets for imager testing and calibration that shine with reflected sunlight, just as asteroid Psyche does.<\/p>\n

The team also select objects that have a spectrum they\u2019re familiar with, so they can compare previous data with data from newer targets.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Earlier in 2025,\u00a0Psyche\u00a0studied Jupiter and Mars\u00a0for the purposes of instrument calibration, and mission scientists say this was a success.<\/p>\n

They can compare data across multiple different tests to see whether Psyche’s camera performance is changing.<\/p>\n

\u201cAfter this, we may look at Saturn or Vesta to help us continue to test the imagers,” says Jim Bell, Psyche imager instrument lead at Arizona State University in Tempe.<\/p>\n

“We\u2019re sort of collecting Solar System \u2018trading cards\u2019 from these different bodies and running them through our calibration pipeline to make sure we\u2019re getting the right answers.”<\/p>\n

“We are up and running, and everything is working well,” says Bob Mase, mission project manager at NASA\u2019s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.<\/p>\n

“We\u2019re on target to fly by Mars in May 2026, and we are accomplishing all of our planned activities for cruise.”<\/p>\n

The Mars flyby will use the planet’s gravitational pull to fire the spacecraft towards asteroid Psyche.<\/p>\n

It will mark the first of two planned loops around the Solar System for Psyche, and the mission milestone of having clocked up 1.6 billion km (1 million miles) since its launch.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This image captured by NASA’s Psyche spacecraft shows Earth and our Moon from a distance of 290 million…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":93241,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[64,63,128,285],"class_list":["post-93240","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-space","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-science","tag-space"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93240","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=93240"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93240\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/93241"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=93240"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=93240"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=93240"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}