The spacecraft aced its encounter with Mars. Now, mission scientists are studying a trove of data from the flyby in preparation for its arrival at asteroid Psyche in 2029.

A Southwest Research Institute-led study has proposed a connection between a specific collision in the main asteroid belt and an inner-solar-system-wide bombardment episode that may have had measurable biological and geological consequences on Earth. The research suggests that the catastrophic breakup of the Eulalia parent body could be linked to an impact shower that struck the terrestrial planets about 800 million years ago. The work is published on the arXiv preprint server.