NASA’s Psyche spacecraft, now 180 million miles (290 million kilometers) from home, has photographed Earth and the Moon while calibrating its twin multispectral cameras. The images, taken on July 20 and 23 during routine instrument checkouts, show the two bodies as bright points of reflected sunlight against the constellation Aries. The calibration marks another milestone for the $1.2 billion mission, which launched in October 2023 to study the metal-rich asteroid Psyche orbiting between Mars and Jupiter. Mission teams compare the new exposures with earlier test images of Jupiter and Mars to confirm the imagers are performing to specification. Psyche is following a spiral trajectory that will use a Mars gravity assist in May 2026 to set course for its target, where it is scheduled to enter orbit in 2029. Scientists aim to analyze the asteroid’s composition to better understand how rocky planets with metallic cores, including Earth, formed.