The Psyche mission is a journey to a unique metal-rich asteroid orbiting the Sun between Mars and Jupiter. What makes the asteroid Psyche unique is that it appears to be the exposed nickel-iron core of an early planet, one of the building blocks of our solar system. It launched from Kennedy Space Center last October on a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket and is currently using its futuristic electric propulsion ion thrusters as it prepares for a gravity assist from Mars to reach Psyche.
Deep within rocky, terrestrial planets – including Earth – scientists infer the presence of metallic cores, but these lie unreachably far below the planets’ rocky mantles and crusts. Psyche will offer us a unique window to explore what the core of a rocky planet may look like.
