It’s unlikely to be a bad omen, but Nasa’s mission Psyche is currently due to launch on Friday 13 October. Lifting off at 10.19 EDT on a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket, it faces a perilous journey and isn’t scheduled for arrival at its namesake asteroid, 16 Pscyhe, until 2029.
Asteroid 16 Psyche (meaning “soul” in Greek) was discovered in 1852 and is named after an ancient Greek princess who married Eros (the namesake of another asteroid). It orbits the Sun in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, at approximately three times the distance from the Sun as Earth. It is a massive M-type asteroid (M stands for “metal-rich”), over 230km across.
