November 20th 2024.
Can you believe it? It's been over a year since NASA launched a spacecraft on a mission worth a whopping $10 quintillion. That's $10,000,000,000,000,000,000 for those of us who have trouble counting all those zeros. And let me tell you, it's no easy feat to send a spacecraft after an asteroid with that kind of value.
But let's not get ahead of ourselves. This mission has been years in the making and we still have five more years to go before we start receiving any data. So what's the big deal about this asteroid, you may be wondering? Well, it's called 16 Psyche, or just Psyche for short, and it's believed to hold secrets about our own planet that are waiting to be discovered.
This golden treasure in the sky was first discovered in 1852 by an Italian astronomer named Annibale De Gasparis. It was named after the Greek goddess of the soul, Psyche, and became the 16th known asteroid in our solar system. But what exactly does NASA want with this space rock?
To put it simply, Psyche is an asteroid that resides in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. NASA describes it as one of the most intriguing objects in the belt, with up to 60% of its composition being made of metal. In fact, it's been classified as an M type asteroid, which makes it quite unique.
But what makes Psyche even more special is its irregular potato-like shape. If you were to slice it in half, it would resemble a squashed oval. And get this, it measures a whopping 173 miles across at its widest point and is 144 miles long, giving it a surface area of 64,000 square miles. That's bigger than some countries!
But size isn't the only thing that makes Psyche stand out. It also contains around 1% of the total mass of the entire asteroid belt, making it the largest M type asteroid discovered so far. And the best part? It's believed to be made mostly of metal, including iron, nickel, gold, platinum, and palladium. In fact, it's estimated to be worth $10 quintillion, which is far more than all the money on our planet. Can you imagine?
But don't get too excited about cashing in on this asteroid. NASA has no plans to bring any of that precious metal back to Earth. Instead, they are more interested in the secrets that lie within Psyche's core, which could give us a glimpse into the formation of our solar system and our own planet.
Speaking of our solar system, did you know that it's thought to have between 1.1 and 1.9 million asteroids larger than 1 kilometer in diameter? And that's not even counting the millions of smaller ones floating around in the asteroid belt. Other stars have also been found to have asteroid belts, suggesting that they may be common in other solar systems as well.
The largest body in the asteroid belt is Ceres, which is around 600 miles across. However, it's classified as a dwarf planet, similar to Pluto. The asteroid belt orbits the Sun in a doughnut-shaped torus, nestled between the planets Mars and Jupiter.
So why is NASA so interested in Psyche? Well, it's not every day that we get the chance to study an asteroid with more metal than rock and ice. This is the first mission of its kind and it's expected to provide valuable information about the formation of our solar system and our own planet.
The Psyche spacecraft, which was launched on October 13, 2023, from the Kennedy Space Center, is now on its way to meet its metallic destination. Psyche orbits the Sun in the outer part of the asteroid belt, three times farther than Earth. It's estimated to take around six years for the spacecraft to reach its destination, with a distance varying from less than 186 million miles to more than 372 million miles.
In late July of 2029, the spacecraft is expected to be captured by Psyche's gravity, and the prime mission will begin in August. The spacecraft will spend two years orbiting the asteroid, taking pictures, mapping the surface, and collecting data to determine its composition.
Lindy Elkins-Tanton, the principal investigator of the Psyche mission, described the launch of the spacecraft as a starting line for the next marathon. And she's right, as this mission has the potential to fill in many gaps in our knowledge and reveal more about the wonders of our solar system. It's truly an exciting time for space exploration.
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