Psyche Completes Mars Flyby, Testing 3 Instruments Ahead of 2029 Asteroid Orbit

Q: What surprising secret about Mars’s dusty atmosphere did Psyche’s cameras accidentally uncover during its high-speed slingshot maneuver?

Psyche’s cameras unexpectedly showed that Mars’s dusty atmosphere scatters sunlight much more strongly than anticipated, making the planet’s thin crescent look brighter and extend farther around the limb than models had predicted. That effect revealed a useful detail about the Martian atmosphere: airborne dust can create a broad halo of scattered light, changing how Mars appears even in very short exposures. NASA said the brightness was hard to predict in advance because dust levels in Mars’s atmosphere can vary quickly. The images also hinted at a possible regional exception. Scientists noticed an apparent gap in the extended crescent near the winter north polar cap, where seasonal clouds or hazes may have been blocking the dust-driven scattering seen elsewhere. So the “secret” Psyche uncovered was not a new atmospheric component, but a striking real-world demonstration of how variable Martian dust can dramatically reshape the planet’s visible glow.

3 articles · Updated · Futura · Aug 3

NASA’s Psyche spacecraft used its May 2026 Mars flyby to gain a gravity assist and validate onboard systems, with mission teams reporting all three primary instruments performed well.
The gamma-ray and neutron spectrometer flew too far from Mars to detect gamma rays but did record escaping neutrons, confirming the sensor works as designed.
The magnetometer captured a sharp rise in magnetic field strength at Mars’s bow shock, while the multispectral imager recorded a time-lapse flyby and detailed views of the south polar cap and Huygens crater.
The successful test run supports Psyche’s longer mission to asteroid 16 Psyche—about 200 kilometers wide—where it is due to enter orbit in 2029 and probe whether the metal-rich body is an exposed protoplanetary core.