NASA’s Psyche spacecraft, now cruising toward the metal-rich asteroid that shares its name, has returned its first images of Earth and the Moon from roughly 180 million miles (290 million kilometers) away. The twin multispectral cameras captured the long-exposure pictures on July 20 and 23 during a scheduled instrument calibration, showing the two bodies as bright points among the stars in the constellation Aries. Engineers reported that the imagers, along with Psyche’s magnetometer and its gamma-ray and neutron spectrometer, all performed nominally, confirming that the spacecraft remains in good health during its deep-space cruise. The check-out is one in a series of periodic tests designed to verify instrument stability before the probe begins detailed mapping of its target. Launched from Florida in October 2023, Psyche is following a spiral trajectory that will use a Mars gravity assist in May 2026 to gain speed toward the asteroid. Mission managers at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and Arizona State University say the craft remains on schedule to enter orbit around Psyche in 2029, where it will study the body’s composition to learn more about the formation of planetary cores.