2022 A.O.C. Nier Lecture, "The NASA Psyche Mission: Journey to a Metal World"

The NASA Psyche Mission (https://psyche.asu.edu/) is a journey to a metal 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.  The spacecraft will launch in August 2022 and rendezvous with asteroid Psyche in 2026.

Professor Lindy. Elkins-Tanton is the Pysche Mission Principal Investigator and one of the world’s foremost authorities on asteroids.  She will discuss what we know about Psyche, the many things we do not know, and the importance of asteroids to understanding the origins of planets.

Prior to taking on the Principal Investigator role of the Psyche Mission, Professor Elkins-Tanton was the Director of the School of Earth and Space Exploration at ASU and before that, headed the Department of Terrestrial Magnetism at the Carnegie Institution for Science.  She earned her B.S. and Ph.D. degrees at MIT, where she also served on the faculty.  She is a member of the National Academy of Science, and in 2020 won the Arthur L. Day prize from the National Academy.  Asteroid 8252 Elkins-Tanton is named in her honor.

Sponsored jointly by the Dept. of Earth and Environmental Sciences and the School of Physics and Astronomy

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