Nasa captures rare pic of Mars on way to 'golden asteroid'

A Nasa spacecraft has captured an amazing new picture of Mars, as it travels through space on its journey towards a 'golden' asteroid.

In the photo, Mars appears as a glowing crescent shape, similar to the Moon we see from Earth.

It was taken by the craft, called Psyche, which photographed the Red Planet from around 3 million miles away.

Psyche is heading towards a piece of space rock that's thought to contain a core of iron, nickel and gold worth a whopping $10,000 quadrillion!

Nasa's Psyche mission is the US space agency's treasure hunt to the asteroid, Psyche.

The space rock has been nicknamed the 'golden asteroid' as its thought to contain a core of iron, nickel and gold worth a whopping $10,000 quadrillion!

The unmanned spacecraft lifted off from the Kennedy Space Centre in the US state of Florida in October 2023.

If all goes as planned, the spacecraft will arrive at the asteroid in late 2029.

It is currently flying close past Mars this month, in a special move called a "gravity assist".

This means the plan is that Mars' gravity will help pull the spacecraft forward, giving it an extra boost and helping it save fuel as it makes its long journey to Psyche.

Somewhere between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter lurks a metal asteroid known as 16 Psyche.

It was first discovered in 1852 and, because it was the 16th asteroid to be discovered, it is sometimes referred to as 16 Psyche.

Psyche is a giant and unique piece of space rock that measures around 140 miles (226km) wide.

Nasa believes it contain a core of iron, nickel and gold worth a whopping $10,000 quadrillion!

That's enough money to make everyone on the planet a billionaire!

This mission is part of Nasa's new low-cost robotic Discovery programme, where the spacecraft will hope to find out more about unexplored asteroids like this one.

Experts think the Psyche asteroid is special and unlike other asteroids, which are typically made up of rock and ice.

They believe Psyche could prove to be the core of an early planet, which has had its outer layers stripped off.

Exploring it could help Nasa understand more about how planets were formed.

Discovering whether or not the asteroid has a magnetic field would help prove their theory about planets.