Anyone hoping to cash in on one of NASA's most high profile and potentially profitable current missions won't be happy to hear this admission, as the scientist behind the space agency's push for a money-filled rock has left many shocked.
While the asteroid of the year has can go to no other than 2024 YR4, as it's close brush with Earth had many thinking were weren't far away from a doomsday scenario, but another floating space rock has given people far more hope.
Known as 16 Psyche, this particular asteroid has been known by scientists for nearly 300 years, as it was first discovered by Italian astronomer Annibale de Gasparis back in 1852.
It was named after the Greek goddess Psyche, as it's numerical signifier indicates its place as the 16th minor planet to be discovered by humanity.
Why is NASA interested in 16 Psyche?
You might be wondering why there's so much fuss surrounding 16 Psyche all of a sudden if astronomers have had it on their radar for so long, and it all revolves around newly formed monetary valuations.
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As reported by the National Post, 16 Psyche boasts a diameter of roughly 200 kilometers, and is large enough to cause observable gravitational effects on nearby smaller floating bodies.
Within its formation though are countless valuable and even rare metals, which have only recently been properly quantified by scientists over at NASA.
It measures with far greater density than most other similar asteroids, and is made up primarily of iron and nickel, with smaller amounts of gold, platinum, iridium, and palladium within its body.
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As you can imagine, these combined together would make an absolute fortune if NASA was able to extract it all, and financial estimations indicate that 16 Psyche could be worth upwards of $10,000,000,000,000,000,000 (10 quintillion) as a whole.
If you divided this up equally across every single person on planet Earth we would all have a share of around $1,250,000,000, which while almost definitely causing irreversible inflation, would definitely be nice in the immediate short term.
Anyone thinking this figure might just be a bit too good to be true though might be on the right tracks, as one scientists has revealed a shocking admission regarding 16 Psyche that few will be happy to hear.
What is the scientist's admission?
Lindy Elkins-Tanton, a planetary scientist at Arizona State University, was the principal investigator of NASA's Psyche mission, and the person who came up with the $10 trillion that has been floated around so much.
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By her own admission this was broadly just a back-of-the-napkin figure that was based heavily on the price of nickel at the time, but there are more reasons why you shouldn't be too fooled by the eye-catching numbers being thrown around about 16 Psyche.
Bloomberg Businessweek economics editor Peter Coy has revealed his own case study of Elkins-Tanton's numbers, and why they both share the same caveats regarding the asteroid's price.
"First, it's Elkins-Tanton's own estimate, which she told me she ballparked about six years ago when reporters first came calling about the mission," Coy writes, adding that "she estimated that the nickel alone was worth that much."
He then added that "to sell all the metal in Psyche someone would have to bring it all to Earth, which is almost inconceivable." That's something that is rarely touched upon when it comes to a rock roughly the size of Cyprus, as it's not like NASA have a big net they can just use to nab the asteroid out of the sky.
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Finally, and perhaps most importantly, Coy expounds that "if that much metal really could be brought to Earth, there would be far more than anyone needs, and it's value would crash.
"Earth has way more minerals than Psyche, but we don't go around bragging about the sextillions of dollars' worth of minerals that lie (inaccessibly) beneath our feet."
So, in simple terms while 16 Psyche might be worth over $10 quintillion in a vacuum, it's actual financial and extractable worth is far, far less, and the real value for NASA and its mission lies in the scientific discoveries, rather than those that start with a dollar sign.