AI overview
16 Psyche is a large asteroid located in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. Scientists are interested in studying it because it may be composed largely of iron and nickel, making it potentially different from other asteroids and offering clues about how planets form.
AI-generated from the Wikipedia summary — may contain errors.
Picture of the Day · NASA
PK 164 +31.1: The Headphone Nebula
2026-05-27
What is a pair of headphones doing in the sky? Today’s image features the Headphone Nebula, also known as PK 164 +31.1 or Jones-Emberson 1. This planetary nebula, the remnant of a dying Sun-like star, faintly occupies an angular region of the Lynx constellation about 1/5th the diameter of the full moon. The red and blue-ish green colors trace hydrogen and oxygen atoms, respectively, that have been excited and ionized by the nebula's central white dwarf. The headphone shape, where two lobes of hydrogen puncture the inner region of oxygen, adds this object to a long list of oddly shaped nebulae. The morphology of such strange nebulae hint at the presence of a stellar or planetary companion, which can stir the material flowing out from the dying star. You can listen to Hubble and JWST sonifications of planetary nebulae through your very own headphones!
via NASA APOD
Wikidata facts
- Instance of
- asteroid
- Named after
- Psyche
- Followed by
- 17 Thetis
- Follows
- 15 Eunomia
Article
16 Psyche (/ˈsaɪkiː/ SY-kee) is a large M-type asteroid, which was discovered by the Italian astronomer Annibale de Gasparis, on 17 March 1852 and named after the Greek goddess Psyche.
The prefix "16" signifies that it was the sixteenth minor planet in order of discovery. It is the largest and most massive of the M-type asteroids, and one of the dozen most massive asteroids. This body has a mean diameter of approximately 222 kilometers (138 mi) and contains about one percent of the cumulative mass of the whole asteroid belt. It was thought to be the exposed core of a protoplanet, but observations reported in 2020 have cast doubt on that hypothesis.