{"id":442606,"date":"2026-05-15T06:04:11","date_gmt":"2026-05-15T06:04:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/442606\/"},"modified":"2026-05-15T06:04:11","modified_gmt":"2026-05-15T06:04:11","slug":"nasas-psyche-is-about-to-use-mars-as-a-slingshot-to-a-rare-metal-asteroid-sciencealert","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/442606\/","title":{"rendered":"NASA’s Psyche Is About to Use Mars as a Slingshot to a Rare Metal Asteroid : ScienceAlert"},"content":{"rendered":"

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) \u2013 A NASA spacecraft<\/a> chasing a rare metal asteroid<\/a> swings past Mars<\/a> this week for a gravity boost, snapping thousands of pictures as practice for the main encounter in 2029.<\/p>\n

Named Psyche, like the asteroid it’s after, the robotic explorer will slingshot past the red planet<\/a> at 12,333 mph (19,848 kph) on Friday 15 May.<\/p>\n

It will be an especially close flyby, with Psyche passing within 2,800 miles (4,500 kilometers) of Mars<\/a>, equivalent to the distance between the US east and west coasts.<\/p>\n

Then it will barrel toward the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter<\/a>, which is home to its enticing target.<\/p>\n

\"YouTube frameborder=”0\u2033 allow=”accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share” referrerpolicy=”strict-origin-when-cross-origin” allowfullscreen><\/p>\n

All of the spacecraft’s science instruments will be on for the Mars pass.<\/p>\n

NASA’s two Mars rovers, along with a small fleet of US and European orbiters, will make surface and atmospheric observations at the same time for comparison.<\/p>\n

Psyche’s cameras already are photographing Mars, appearing as a crescent on approach and a nearly full sphere once it’s in the rearview mirror.<\/p>\n

The different views will serve double duty, allowing operators to fine-tune their instruments while providing “just plain beautiful photos,” Arizona State University’s Jim Bell, the imaging team leader, said in a statement.<\/p>\n

\"A(NASA\/JPL-Caltech\/ASU<\/a>)<\/p>\n

While the asteroid belt is swarming with millions of objects, most are made of rock or ice<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Only a small percentage are thought to be metal-rich like Psyche, a potato-shaped asteroid roughly 173 miles long and 144 miles wide (278 kilometers by 232 kilometers).<\/p>\n

\"Subscribe<\/a><\/p>\n

Scientists suspect the asteroid may be the exposed nickel-and-iron core of a fledgling planet that was stripped down by cosmic collisions.<\/p>\n

Studying such an object up close can yield information about the dawn of our solar system 4.6 billion years ago, and why and how Earth spawned life.<\/p>\n

Related: How Feasible Is Asteroid Mining? A New Study Investigates<\/a><\/p>\n

Launched in 2023, the spacecraft is midway through its six-year round-trip journey to Psyche in the outer fringes of the asteroid belt, three times farther from the sun than Earth.<\/p>\n

\"NASA'sThe orbital trajectory of Psyche. (NASA\/JPL-Caltech<\/a>)<\/p>\n

It should arrive in 2029, slipping into orbit around the asteroid for two years of study.<\/p>\n

The van-sized spacecraft runs on solar electric propulsion, using xenon gas thrusters.<\/p>\n

You can read more about the Psyche mission here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) \u2013 A NASA spacecraft chasing a rare metal asteroid swings past Mars this week…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":442607,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[85,46,141,145],"class_list":["post-442606","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-space","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-science","tag-space"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/442606","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=442606"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/442606\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/442607"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=442606"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=442606"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=442606"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}