Psyche

Psyche is made mostly of metal instead of rock — it may be the bare core of a planet that never finished growing! Everything else around it melted or was smashed away.

🕒 When can I see it?🚀 Travel there

What it is

Metallic asteroid, thought to possibly be the exposed core of a small failed planet.

Asteroid: Rock or metal left over from building the planets. Every kind of thing there is →

How to find Psyche

Its position moves, so there is no fixed place on a map to point at. The Planetarium works out where it is for your own place and date.

Show me Psyche in tonight's sky

What you will really see

Through a small telescope, on a good night

A slow-moving 'star' — come back the next night and it has crept along.

🔭 See it drawn as it looks through a telescope

🖨️ A sheet to print for this

🖨️ Print a sheet and go and look

🖨️ Sheet to take outside →

Worth knowing about Psyche

Psyche is about 1/56 the size of Earth. In weight, about 1/220,000th of Earth — but very dense for its size because it's mostly metal. Almost 3 times Earth's distance from the Sun. Sunlight takes 24 minutes to reach Psyche — on average, because that distance changes as it goes round. Its year: about 5 years. Its day: 4.2 hours.

Its surface: Mostly iron and nickel, unlike almost every other asteroid; scientists think it might be the exposed metal core of a small planet that lost its rocky layers in ancient collisions.
The machines we sent: NASA's Psyche spacecraft launched 2023, arriving 2029.

How did anyone measure the Earth in the first place?

The numbers

Across	222 km
Distance from the Sun, on average	2.92 AU ~437 million km · sunlight takes 24 minutes
Once round its orbit	5.0 Earth years
One day there	4.2 hours

What it belongs to

☀️ Everything the Sun holds, in one place 📖 How the solar system fits together

Then go outside

Clear tonight? The Planetarium will show you what is worth a look. Then just go out.

🌙 Plan an evening outside 🌌 Everything else in the sky