NASA’s Psyche mission, deeply connected to MIT, aims to explore a metal-rich asteroid between Mars and Jupiter, believed to be the core of a primitive planet. MIT researchers play crucial roles in the mission’s magnetic field and gravity studies. The spacecraft will be equipped with a magnetometer, cameras, and a gamma-ray and neutron spectrometer, all crucial to unveil the mysteries of the asteroid’s composition and magnetic properties. (Artist rendition of a close-up of asteroid Psyche.) Credit: Peter Rubin/ASU
The NASA mission, a project with deep roots at MIT, is setting course for a metallic space rock that could be the remnant of a planetary core like our own.
On October 13, NASA’s Psyche mission launched, and now the spacecraft is headed to a metal world.
Psyche, a van-sized spacecraft with winglike solar panels, blasted off aboard a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket last Friday at 10:19 a.m. Eastern Time. Psyche’s destination is a potato-shaped asteroid by the same name that orbits the sun within the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter.
Astronomers suspect that the asteroid Psyche, which is about the size of Massachusetts, is made mostly of metal. If that’s the case, the asteroid could be the exposed core of an early, infant planet that might hold clues to how the Earth’s own metal-rich core formed.
“It’s a puzzle. And you have to not only figure out how the pieces fit together, but you have to figure out what the pieces are,” says MIT Research Scientist Jodie Ream, who helped in the magnetometer’s design.
NASA’s Psyche spacecraft, atop a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket, lifts off from Kennedy Space Center’s historic Launch Complex 39A in Florida at 10:19 a.m. EDT on Friday, October 13, 2023. The Psyche mission will study a metal-rich asteroid with the same name, located in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. This is NASA’s first mission to study an asteroid that has more metal than rock or ice. Riding with Psyche is a pioneering technology demonstration – NASA’s Deep Space Optical Communications (DSOC) experiment – which will be the first test of laser communications beyond the Moon. Credit: SpaceX
Journey Details and MIT Connections
After it launched from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, the Psyche mission embarked on a six-year interplanetary journey. In 2026, the spacecraft will approach Mars, where the planet’s gravitational pull will slingshot the spacecraft out to the asteroid. The mission will arrive at Psyche sometime in 2029, where it will spend another 26 months orbiting and surveying the space rock, analyzing its surface composition, mapping its gravity, and measuring any magnetic field that it might possess.
Scientists at MIT are leading Psyche’s magnetic field and gravity studies. And, the mission as a whole has a history that traces back to MIT. Psyche’s principal investigator is MIT alumna and former professor Lindy Elkins-Tanton ’87, SM ’87, PhD ’02, now a professor at Arizona State University, while its deputy principal investigator is Benjamin Weiss, an MIT professor of planetary science. In her role as mission PI, Elkins-Tanton, who is also vice president of the ASU Interplanetary Initiative, is leading a team including longtime MIT colleagues on the first mission to a metal world.
“Being able to undertake fundamental exploration of a new kind of world is a thrill and a privilege beyond anything I had envisioned for my life,” Elkins-Tanton says. “But the best part of it is helping to create and support a huge team of people who are all on this journey together.”
NASA’s Psyche spacecraft aims to journey to an asteroid believed to be made mostly of metal. This unique exploration could provide insights into the early days of planet formation. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU
A Hypothesis on Psyche’s Origin
Scientists have hypothesized that Psyche may represent a case of planetary arrested development. While Earth and other rocky planets continued to accumulate material around their metal-rich cores some 4.5 billion years ago, Psyche may have met an untimely end, sustaining multiple collisions that blew off its rocky surface, leaving behind a naked metallic core. That core, scientists believe, could retain the elements that also formed Earth’s center.
“This will be the first time we’ve sent a mission to a body that is not mostly rock or ice, but metal,” Weiss says. “Not only is this asteroid potentially a metal world, but asteroids are building blocks of planets. So Psyche could tell us something about how planets formed.”
The seeds of a mission to explore an asteroid like Psyche were planted during a chance conversation between Weiss and Elkins-Tanton in 2010 at MIT. At the time, Elkins-Tanton was a professor in MIT’s Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences, and had just finished teaching for the day.
“As she was passing by my office, I said, ‘Hey, do you have a minute?’” Weiss recalls.
Weiss was studying samples of Allende, a meteorite that fell to Earth in 1969 as a shower of fragments. The samples appeared to be magnetized, but also curiously unmelted. Weiss wondered how such a body could have become magnetized without any sign of the melting and churning that typically produces magnetic fields in space.
NASA’s Psyche Mission is set to explore the metal-rich asteroid, Psyche, which lies between Mars and Jupiter. Scientists believe this asteroid might be the exposed core of an early planet, offering clues about the formation of Earth’s own core. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU
Having just lectured on the topic of melting cores and planet formation, Elkins-Tanton offered an idea: When a planet first forms, it is little more than an accumulation of unmelted rock and dust. As more material smashes into the infant planet, the collisions jostle the innermost regions, producing a melted, churning core, surrounded by unmelted material. The molten, swirling core could spin up a magnetic field, that could imprint upon a planet’s outer, unmelted layers.
Perhaps, the two realized, Allende’s magnetized, unmelted fragments came from the outer layer of a planetismal, or early planet, that harbored a melted, magnetic core. If that were the case, then perhaps other meteorite fragments are also remnants of early, differentiated planets.
“Hearing Ben talk about his shocking discovery of magnetism in the Allende meteorite, and then immediately having a mental model of the physics and chemistry of formation that could have led to that, was just a moment of pure joy,” Elkins-Tanton says of their realization.
She and Weiss wrote up their ideas in two 2011 papers. Then, the engineers came knocking.
“Lindy got a call from JPL (NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory),” Weiss says. “They’d read the paper and said, ‘This is really cool. Is there a way you could test this idea, that you could partially melt bodies, and magnetize meteorites?’”
The call set off a series of brainstorming back-and-forths that eventually developed into a mission concept: to send a spacecraft to explore an ancient planetary core. The asteroid Psyche, they realized, was their best shot, as it’s relatively close to Earth and has shown signs of metal-rich, core-like content.
An Asteroid’s Field
In 2017, the team’s proposal for a mission to Psyche was greenlit as part of NASA’s Discovery Program. Elkins-Tanton, who had since moved to ASU, became head of the mission, while Weiss; Maria Zuber, MIT’s E.A. Griswold Professor of Geophysics and vice president for research; and others at MIT joined the mission’s science team. Together, the scientists and engineers at JPL planned out the hardware that a spacecraft would need in order to determine whether Psyche is a metal-rich core.
Celebrating successful completion of environmental testing of the @MissionToPsyche spacecraft with mission PI and former student @ltelkins ! pic.twitter.com/U3YueLJRA7
— Maria Zuber (@maria_zuber) April 16, 2022
They decided on three instruments: a magnetometer that will look for signs of an ancient magnetic field that could be imprinted in Psyche’s surface layers; a pair of cameras that will take images and spot any visual signs of metal on Psyche’s surface; and a gamma-ray and neutron spectrometer that will measure the asteroid’s emissions of neutrons and gamma rays. These measurements can tell scientists whether and which metallic elements lie on its surface.
The spacecraft will also carry a communications system, which will mainly be used to send data and receive commands in the form of radio waves. A science team led by Zuber will also use the system to carry out a gravity study. The team will analyze the radio waves as the spacecraft orbits the asteroid, to see how they and the spacecraft are influenced by the asteroid’s gravitational pull. These analyses will help the scientists map Psyche’s gravity field, which can then determine the asteroid’s mass and how likely that mass is made of metal.
The magnetometer investigation is led by Weiss and involves others at MIT. The instrument was designed and built by researchers at the Technical University of Denmark. The team worked with JPL engineers to refine the magnetometer’s design, which consists of two sensors installed on an arm-like boom — a configuration that will help the instrument pick up any magnetic signal from the asteroid itself, amid the “noise” from the spacecraft, its solar panels, and its surroundings.
To interpret whatever magnetic field the magnetometer does pick up from Psyche, the MIT team has developed a “library” of simulated magnetic field patterns.
A Look Ahead
“Space is filled with magnetic fields coming from planets, our own sun, and the solar wind,” says MIT Research Scientist Rona Oran. “Our simulation library will allow us to examine different scenarios, so that when we get to Psyche, we’ll use those tools to derive the asteroid’s actual, real field.”
In fact, the team will have many chances to refine the library, and their understanding of the magnetic fields around the spacecraft, as it makes its way to the asteroid. Soon after Psyche launches, engineers will turn on the magnetometer, which will then continuously measure the magnetic fields around the spacecraft, throughout its journey. These data will regularly downlink to JPL and be transmited to two data processing centers at MIT, where Oran, Weiss, and others will use the data to hone their understanding of what they might find around the asteroid itself.
“This is the first time our group has led a science investigation on a spacecraft,” Weiss says. “Once the mission launches, we’re on the hotseat to run this. It’s a big responsibility, and also incredibly exciting.”
NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — The body of Ugandan Olympic athlete Rebecca Cheptegei — who died after being set on fire by her partner in Kenya — was received Friday by family and anti-femicide crusaders, ahead of her burial a day later.
Cheptegei’s family met with dozens of activists Friday who had marched to the Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital’s morgue in the western city of Eldoret while chanting anti-femicide slogans.
She is the fourth female athlete to have been killed by her partner in Kenya in yet another case of gender-based violence in recent years.
Viola Cheptoo, the founder of Tirop Angels – an organization that was formed in honor of athlete Agnes Tirop, who was stabbed to death in 2021, said stakeholders need to ensure this is the last death of an athlete due to gender-based violence.
“We are here to say that enough is enough, we are tired of burying our sisters due to GBV,” she said.
It was a somber mood at the morgue as athletes and family members viewed Cheptegei’s body which sustained 80% of burns after she was doused with gasoline by her partner Dickson Ndiema. Ndiema sustained 30% burns on his body and later succumbed.
Ndiema and Cheptegei were said to have quarreled over a piece of land that the athlete bought in Kenya, according to a report filed by the local chief.
Cheptegei competed in the women’s marathon at the Paris Olympics less than a month before the attack. She finished in 44th place.
Cheptegei’s father, Joseph, said that the body will make a brief stop at their home in the Endebess area before proceeding to Bukwo in eastern Uganda for a night vigil and burial on Saturday.
“We are in the final part of giving my daughter the last respect,” a visibly distraught Joseph said.
He told reporters last week that Ndiema was stalking and threatening Cheptegei and the family had informed police.
Four in 10 women or an estimated 41% of dating or married Kenyan women have experienced physical or sexual violence perpetrated by their current or most recent partner, according to the Kenya Demographic and Health Survey 2022.
TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — A rare Bronze-Era jar accidentally smashed by a 4-year-old visiting a museum was back on display Wednesday after restoration experts were able to carefully piece the artifact back together.
Last month, a family from northern Israel was visiting the museum when their youngest son tipped over the jar, which smashed into pieces.
Alex Geller, the boy’s father, said his son — the youngest of three — is exceptionally curious, and that the moment he heard the crash, “please let that not be my child” was the first thought that raced through his head.
The jar has been on display at the Hecht Museum in Haifa for 35 years. It was one of the only containers of its size and from that period still complete when it was discovered.
The Bronze Age jar is one of many artifacts exhibited out in the open, part of the Hecht Museum’s vision of letting visitors explore history without glass barriers, said Inbal Rivlin, the director of the museum, which is associated with Haifa University in northern Israel.
It was likely used to hold wine or oil, and dates back to between 2200 and 1500 B.C.
Rivlin and the museum decided to turn the moment, which captured international attention, into a teaching moment, inviting the Geller family back for a special visit and hands-on activity to illustrate the restoration process.
Rivlin added that the incident provided a welcome distraction from the ongoing war in Gaza. “Well, he’s just a kid. So I think that somehow it touches the heart of the people in Israel and around the world,“ said Rivlin.
Roee Shafir, a restoration expert at the museum, said the repairs would be fairly simple, as the pieces were from a single, complete jar. Archaeologists often face the more daunting task of sifting through piles of shards from multiple objects and trying to piece them together.
Experts used 3D technology, hi-resolution videos, and special glue to painstakingly reconstruct the large jar.
Less than two weeks after it broke, the jar went back on display at the museum. The gluing process left small hairline cracks, and a few pieces are missing, but the jar’s impressive size remains.
The only noticeable difference in the exhibit was a new sign reading “please don’t touch.”
VICTORIA – The British Columbia government is partnering with a bear welfare group to reduce the number of bears being euthanized in the province.
Nicholas Scapillati, executive director of Grizzly Bear Foundation, said Monday that it comes after months-long discussions with the province on how to protect bears, with the goal to give the animals a “better and second chance at life in the wild.”
Scapillati said what’s exciting about the project is that the government is open to working with outside experts and the public.
“So, they’ll be working through Indigenous knowledge and scientific understanding, bringing in the latest techniques and training expertise from leading experts,” he said in an interview.
B.C. government data show conservation officers destroyed 603 black bears and 23 grizzly bears in 2023, while 154 black bears were killed by officers in the first six months of this year.
Scapillati said the group will publish a report with recommendations by next spring, while an independent oversight committee will be set up to review all bear encounters with conservation officers to provide advice to the government.
Environment Minister George Heyman said in a statement that they are looking for new ways to ensure conservation officers “have the trust of the communities they serve,” and the panel will make recommendations to enhance officer training and improve policies.
Lesley Fox, with the wildlife protection group The Fur-Bearers, said they’ve been calling for such a committee for decades.
“This move demonstrates the government is listening,” said Fox. “I suspect, because of the impending election, their listening skills are potentially a little sharper than they normally are.”
Fox said the partnership came from “a place of long frustration” as provincial conservation officers kill more than 500 black bears every year on average, and the public is “no longer tolerating this kind of approach.”
“I think that the conservation officer service and the B.C. government are aware they need to change, and certainly the public has been asking for it,” said Fox.
Fox said there’s a lot of optimism about the new partnership, but, as with any government, there will likely be a lot of red tape to get through.
“I think speed is going to be important, whether or not the committee has the ability to make change and make change relatively quickly without having to study an issue to death, ” said Fox.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 9, 2024.
