Note: Single-source report; awaiting corroboration.
NASA’s Psyche mission captured a colorized image of Mars on May 3, 2026, from about 3 million miles (4.8 million kilometers) away. The spacecraft is approaching Mars for a planned gravity assist on May 15 to increase its speed and adjust its trajectory toward the asteroid Psyche, with arrival expected in 2029.
The spacecraft’s vantage point is a high-phase angle, making Mars appear as a thin crescent, similar to a crescent Moon. The Sun is out of frame, positioned above both Mars and the Psyche spacecraft. The image was obtained using the multispectral imager instrument’s panchromatic broadband filter with an exposure time of 2 milliseconds.
The crescent’s brightness results from sunlight reflected off Mars’ surface and scattered by dust particles in its atmosphere. Atmospheric dust levels vary rapidly, making it challenging to predict the crescent’s brightness before acquiring this image. This dust scattering causes the crescent to extend further around Mars than if Mars lacked an atmosphere, unlike the Moon.
A notable feature in the image is a gap on the right side of the crescent, coinciding with Mars’ icy north polar cap, currently in winter. Mission specialists suggest that seasonal clouds and hazes may be forming there, potentially blocking atmospheric dust from scattering sunlight as it does elsewhere on the planet.
The Psyche mission’s imager team plans to continue acquiring, processing, and analyzing similar images leading up to the gravity assist, primarily for camera calibration and performance characterization in preparation for the close approach to asteroid Psyche in 2029.