This text is about 16 Psyche, an iron-nickel asteroid in Main Asteroid Belt.
In January 2017, NASA announced one of its asteroid discovery mission, Psyche, will be launched in 2023. Then, in May 2017 NASA has renewed the launching date as summer of 2022. The Psyche Spacecraft will reach the orbit of asteroid in 2026 and do the research 21 months in the orbit. It will not land on surface.
16 Psyche is one of the biggest asteroid in main asteroid belt. You can check one of my previous posts if you want to see what Main Asteroid Belt looks like.
The name of Psyche comes from the Greek mythology. She is goddess of soul and the wife of Eros. Now, here is some technical informations about 16 Psyche:
| Dimensions (km) | 279 x 232 x 189 | |||
| Surface Area (km2 ) | 641,800 (larger than the California State) | |||
| Material | Almost entirely iron-nickel | |||
| Average Distance to Earth | 3 times more between earth and sun | |||
NASA's research team strongly believes that this asteroid was a core of a planet. Since we couldn't explore the earth's core, that will be an amazing opportunity for us to learn what a core looks like.
The value of its iron component is $10,000 quadrillion and the total world economy is $78 trillion. That means the worth of 16 Psyche is 128,000 times much higher than total world economy. That what makes mining so vital on that asteroid. I've read on some articles that world economy could collapse such amount of emtia(Personally, I disagree). NASA says that they don't have any intention on mining it. But, probably in the next stages of this research they will focus on mining.
I think this asteroid proves that the space is not only discovery but also money. A lot of money.
Sources: 1, 2.
images: 1, 2, 3.
