NASA shares Psyche spacecraft's photos of Mars
Key takeaways
- Psyche did a Martian flyby to get gravity assist from the red planet.
- NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU NASA has released the images Psyche took when it did a Mars flyby to get a gravity assist from the red planet on its way to the metallic asteroid 16 Psyche.
- Psyche was also able to take a high-resolution photo of the southern pole of Mars after its closest approach.
Psyche did a Martian flyby to get gravity assist from the red planet.
NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU NASA has released the images Psyche took when it did a Mars flyby to get a gravity assist from the red planet on its way to the metallic asteroid 16 Psyche. One of the photos, which you can see above, shows the Huygens double-ring crater. Psyche took an image of the crater, measuring 290 miles in diameter, shortly after its closest approach with the planet. The various colors in the image are a result of the differences in the composition of dust, sand and bedrock, though NASA enhanced the colors to make them more pronounced.
Psyche was also able to take a high-resolution photo of the southern pole of Mars after its closest approach. The Martian south pole has vast fields of water ice that remain in that state all year round, and they show up as a bright spot in the image.