Earth-bound asteroid is filled with so much precious metals that everyone on the planet would be a billionaire

NASA is launching a mission to study a nearby asteroid worth more than $ 10 trillion – which is said to contain so much precious metals that everyone on Earth would be a billionaire if fired.

After discovering Psyche 16 in March 1852, the 124-mile-wide space rock will be the primary focus of the NASA project, which is slated for launch in August 2022. The spacecraft would arrive four years later in early 2026.

This will be the first exploration in a world of metal rather than rock and ice. NASA said: “Unlike most other asteroids which are rocky or icy bodies, scientists believe that the M-type (metallic) asteroid 16 Psyche is composed primarily of metallic iron and Earth-like nickel. “

The asteroid is nestled between Mars and Jupiter. According to the Daily Mail, it would be the “remains of a protoplanet destroyed by” lightning strikes “during the formation of the solar system”.

A California team has since created a new temperature map to help NASA understand the asteroid’s surface properties. Usually infrared images of a space rock provide only a fragment of data equivalent to a single pixel, but researchers could achieve a resolution of 50 pixels, according to the Daily Mail.

“The findings are a step towards solving the mystery of the origin of this unusual object, which was believed by some to be a piece of the nucleus of an unfortunate protoplanet,” the researchers said in the recent study.

They found that its surface was made up of at least 30%, with other rocks on the surface containing grains of metal.

Katherine de Kleer of Caltech, assistant professor of planetary science and astronomy, added: “We believe that fragments of the cores, mantles and crusts of these objects remain in the form of asteroids today. If this is true, it gives us our only real opportunity to directly study the nuclei of planet-like objects.