Take Aim

Liz Phillips

June 19th, 2025

Major: Physics

Genre/Medium: digital illustration

About the work:

“Take Aim” is a digital illustration that puts a twist on the traditional Greek myth of Cupid and Psyche, portraying the personified Psyche spacecraft with a bow and arrow instead. The mythical Cupid falls in love with the mortal Psyche after accidentally scratching himself with his own arrow, but this archer is aiming for a different celestial body… the asteroid 16 Psyche!

Rather than being whisked away to be married to Cupid in the land of the gods, Psyche embarks on a bold mission to discover herself. Armed with her own sense of agency, she shoots straight for her target and will be united with her namesake in 2029.

My character’s design combines visual elements of both the Greek goddess and the spacecraft. The solar panel “wings” take the place of the goddess’s butterfly wings, and her instrument booms resemble antennae. The circular orbits displayed in the background are my own calculations of the asteroid’s trajectory compared to Mars and Earth’s orbits, which was a project done for my astronomy lab class.

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Psyche Inspired is a program that brings undergraduate students from any discipline or major together to share the excitement, innovation, and scientific and engineering content of NASA’s Psyche mission with the public in new ways through artistic and creative works. This year’s Psyche Inspired cohort is known as the Iridium Class. These works are posted in the gallery and highlighted on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. View the full resolution images in the image gallery. There are many ways to get involved with NASA’s Psyche mission. Learn how you can be a part of the Psyche mission through our “Get Involved” pages at https://psyche.ssl.berkeley.edu/get-involved/ and https://science.nasa.gov/mission/psyche/ways-to-participate/. To learn more about the overall Psyche mission, visit nasa.gov/psyche or jpl.nasa.gov/missions/psyche.

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