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NASA is preparing for a mission that could see her visit a mysterious dead planet in a deep space.
Scheduled for January 31, 2026, the government space agency is preparing to send a spacecraft to the asteroid Pysche. Unlike most asteroids, which are largely composed of rock and ice, the researchers believe that Pysche is composed mainly of iron and nickel, much like the core of the Earth.
"They [scientists] I wonder if Psyche could be the heart of nickel-iron, or the exposed core, of a primitive planet as big as Mars that lost its rocky outer layers following violent collisions there are billions of dollars. years, "NASA wrote on his website. thus, it would provide a unique look into the distant past of the solar system, when the kind of high-speed protoplanet encounters that created the Earth and other terrestrial planets was commonplace. "
The illustration of the artist illustrates the spaceship of NASA's Psyche mission near the target of the mission, the metal asteroid psyche. The artwork was created in May 2017 to show the five-panel solar panels intended for the spacecraft. (Credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / State Univ./Space Systems Loral / Peter Rubin)
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Part of the asteroid belt, the Pysche stretches 125 kilometers wide and orbits the Sun between Mars and Jupiter. Pysche is thought to weigh 49 billion pounds, or 0.03% of the size of our moon, according to Live Science. This would make it the 11th largest known asteroid in the solar system.
The largest asteroid in the solar system is Ceres, which is a quarter of the size of the moon; it is also considered the only dwarf planet of the internal solar system.
The mission is about to begin phase C, where the final design and fabrication are locked after a thorough review by NASA headquarters.
"The Psyche team is not only thrilled to have got the go-ahead for Phase C, but most of all, we're ready," said lead researcher Lindy Elkins-Tanton in her release. "With the transition to this new phase of mission, we are about to reveal the secrets of Psyche, a giant and mysterious metal asteroid that represents the world to us."
Despite the enthusiasm generated by the mission, it still has to go through three other phases, including Phase D, which will begin in early 2021.
If all went well, the craft would be launched in August 2022, fly over Mars in 2023 and finally arrive at the asteroid in 2026.
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