NSN Webinar Series: Psyche: Exploration of a Metal World with Dr. David Williams

Описание: On April 16, 2025, Night Sky Network was joined by Dr. David Williams, where we discussed the current status of NASA’s Psyche Mission.

In January 2017 NASA selected Arizona State University to lead the next of its small, Discovery-class robotic planetary missions, named Psyche. Named after its intended destination, Main Belt asteroid (16) Psyche is the largest M-class (metallic) asteroid in the Solar System. It is thought to be the Fe-Ni core of an ancient planetesimal, where the crust and mantle were removed by multiple impact events. The Psyche spacecraft will begin orbiting the asteroid in August of 2029 on a 24-month mission of exploration and discovery. Join Professor David Williams, the Deputy Imager Lead for the mission, for a discussion of asteroid Psyche, the mission, its objectives, and its place in the broader exploration of our Solar System.


Activities on Psyche:
Scale of the Asteroid Belt: https://nightsky.jpl.nasa.gov/news/114/
Double Asteroid Redirect Test (DART) info, activities links: https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/edu/resource...
Brand new documentary on Planetary Defense: https://science.nasa.gov/science-rese...
Article on successful test of new Deep Space Optical Communication (DSOC) technology: https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/nasas-n...

Background Resources:
https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/edu/resource...
https://psyche.asu.edu
https://science.nasa.gov/solar-system...
https://spaceplace.nasa.gov/asteroid/en/ (also in Spanish)

Activities Demonstrated:
https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/edu/resource...
https://science.nasa.gov/eyes/
https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/edu/resource...


Night Sky Network
https://nightsky.jpl.nasa.gov

Astronomical Society of the Pacific
https://astrosociety.org