Psyche mission Mars flyby event added to Eyes on the Solar System front page.

We recently put up a front-page feature for the upcoming May 15 Psyche spacecraft flyby of Mars, in which the mission will use the gravity of Mars to slingshot herself out to the asteroid Psyche.  (As always in Eyes, you can fast-forward all the way to the spacecraft’s encounter with the asteroid in 2029, if you like, or use the event link to go directly).  

With this release, we decided to have the camera by default track Mars — in this case, or with any event that has a target designated. You can undo this in the “View Options” panel or with the notification that pops up to tell you that the “Camera is following Mars.”  You can have the camera track anything in the solar system, if you like.  

With the camera follow option on, the camera will always keep Mars in view, swinging around the spacecraft to keep Mars always in sight as Psyche flies by, giving a nice cinematic view.

Not every mission has events, but the ones that do will have a timeline of them all on the panel on the left, under “Info.”  For example, Cassini has hundreds of events, so it has a horizontal visual timeline as well as a table of events.