The Psyche mission is well on its way toward the asteroid belt, where it will meet up with its namesake, the asteroid Psyche, a metallic and rocky oblong body about 250 kilometers long. It should pull up alongside the asteroid in August 2029.

But in the meantime engineers commanded it to look back toward Earth, and it took this incredibly cool snapshot:

WHOA. A few stars in the constellation Aries are seen and are labeled, but the brightest by far is Earth. You can see the Moon just above it (check the insert at the lower left for a zoom).

The image was taken from 290 million km away (so just past the orbit of Mars on the inside edge of the main asteroid belt) to test the instruments on board and make sure everything is copacetic. It’s common for instrument responses to change subtly over time, so it’s a good idea to test them out when you can (we used to do this very regularly with the Hubble camera I worked on; part of my job was to process that data to see how things were changing).

I love images like this. It’s stunning to see our planet in this perspective; a dot among many. A bright one, sure, but still so remote it’s just a dot. 

Need I remind you: You’re in that image. So am I, and everyone you know or don’t know, as well as every place you or I have ever been or likely will ever go. Of course, Carl Sagan said it better than I ever could.

Psyche is a weird asteroid, which we think is mostly metal and may have been part of the core of a forming planet. Or it may not have; we don’t know, which is why the mission is on its way. It’s the largest metallic asteroid we know of, so we’re not even really sure what it will look like up close. I am very excited about this mission, and really looking forward to seeing the images in 2029. Stay Tuned!

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Scientists have confirmed another impact crater on Earth: the (somewhat confusingly named) Luna formation in India. While the circular depression in the ground has been known for a long time, it’s been difficult to confirm, which is typical for smaller craters. They erode rapidly, their floors fill with sediment, and their true nature gets concealed. Luna is about 1.8 km wide but only 6 meters from floor to crater rim! It was originally deeper, but time and tide wait for no man. However, detailed study of rocks from the site show that it contains minerals common to impact structures (formed in the tremendous heat and pressure of the event). Dating shows it’s just under 7,000 years old. Only about 300 terrestrial impact craters are known, because erosion wipes them out over time. Therefore, every new one confirmed is an important addition to our knowledge.

On November 13, 2025, I’ll be giving the keynote speech to open the Conference for the Advancement of Science Teaching in Dallas, Texas!

I’m excited about this; when I was doing education and public outreach for NASA I attended a lot of teacher conferences, both on the state and national level. Science teachers get it; they understand the need to give kids a sense of wonder and exploration, to feed their curiosity and encourage even more. They’re a great crowd to talk to.

The Science Teachers Association of Texas, the group organizing the conference, asked me to make a quick promotional video, so here it is:

The topic I mention in the video is pretty general; I’m still working on the lecture but I can promise it’ll be fun and funny; that’s kinda my thing. If you’re a science teacher in the Lone Star State then I urge you to attend! And if you know a science teacher there please let them know about the conference. It’ll be full of other enthusiastic educators sharing knowledge and best practices, with lots of talks and workshops that’ll make your job more fun and more effective. I love teacher conferences, and I bet you will too.

P.S. If you’re part of a museum, company, planetarium, school, or other venue in or near Dallas that wants a seasoned, funny, and engaging speaker about astronomy and science, I’d love to come talk! Please contact my agent Beth Quittman at Samara Speakers Agency if you’re interested. Thanks!

You can email me at [email protected] (though replies can take a while), and all my social media outlets are gathered together at about.me. Also, if you don’t already, please subscribe to this newsletter! And feel free to tell a friend or nine, too. Thanks!