Featured Image Credit: 24K-Production via Getty / Maxar/ASU/P. Rubin/NASA/JPL-Caltech via NASA
Asteroids are nothing more than small, rocky remnants of our solar system that orbit the Sun. Not much value to them.
But asteroid 16 Psyche is blowing our previous knowledge about asteroids as scientists estimate its value to be $10 quintillion.
The James Webb Science Telescope (JWST) discovered the invaluable asteroid it’s said to contain resources that are several times that of the world's entire economy.
But what you might be wondering is why the asteroid is worth this exorbitant amount of money?
Advert
Most asteroids we know are made up of just rock and ice.
But 16 Psyche has a unique composition that is valuable to our manmade societies. For example, the asteroid is made up of elements like platinum and palladium, which are essential to cars and electronics here on Earth.
The US space agency NASA estimates that this oddly shaped asteroid, which has a surface area of about 64,000 square miles (165,800 square kilometres), is made up of 30 to 60 percent metal.
And, in fact, it may contain the exposed nickel-iron core of an early planet which is one of the building blocks of our solar system.
Using radar and optical observations, scientists have created a 3D model of 16 Psyche, showing the various metal content and colours across its surface. But no one really knows what it looks like or what it’s made of until we can see it up close.
The asteroid orbits the Sun between Mars and Jupiter, at a distance of 235 million to 309 million miles (378 million to 497 million kilometres).
That’s roughly three times farther from the Sun than we are which would take us around six years to reach.
However, the feat isn't one too large for NASA as they have been interested in this metal-rich asteroid for a while now.
The space agency launched the Psyche mission on October 13, 2023 and is actually en route to the asteroid - expecting to reach its surface by 2029.
The mission will allow the scientists to take a closer look at the asteroid's makeup and build our current knowledge about the 'formation of our solar system's planets,' according to Live Science.
NASA states on its dedicated Psyche mission webpage: “Psyche offers a unique window into the violent history of collisions and accretion that created terrestrial planets."
The investigation also aims to find out whether16 Psyche really is the core of a planetesimal, a rock from the very early days of the solar system.
