NASA to study $ 700 billion asteroid “gold mine”

If the Beatles taught us anything, it’s that all we need is love. A second pretty close thing that we need, however, is enough money to make everyone a billionaire multiple times. Incredibly, there is something that could actually make this a reality: Psyche 16, a totally metallic asteroid that Bloomberg said is worth 700 quintillion dollars. Or at least $ 140 quintillion, because scientists have now confirmed that the asteroid contains at least 20 percent metal.

DesignTAXI took over the new look of Psyche 16, which is one of the last steps towards actually visiting the precious space rock. NASA plans to send a probe to the asteroid in 2022, which would arrive in 2026. This is a surprisingly short period given that Psyche 16 is hundreds of millions of kilometers from Earth. Although he will get “gravitational assistance” from Mars.

Nasa

To better understand the size, rotation, shape, reflectivity and roughness of Psyche 16, the researchers used the Atacama Large Millimeter / submillimeter Array (or ALMA) telescope in Chile to thermally image the asteroid. They also used ALMA to study any polarized light bouncing off its surface. (Polarized light waves have vibrating electrical charges that occur on a single plane with respect to a variety of planes. More on that here.)

Katherine de Kleer, et al.

In a study published in The Journal of Planetary Sciences, the researchers say the data shows that Psyche 16 contains at least 20 percent metal. And it can even have a much higher metal content. Paradoxically, however, researchers have found that Psyche 16 does not emit the type of polarized light that a highly metallic body should. Researchers now believe that must mean that metal-rich asteroids produce less polarized emissions than metal-poor asteroids. This is in direct contradiction to what they expected.

Aside from this scientific conundrum, this discovery obviously helps to build enthusiasm for the mission. (A preview of which is in the video above.) Although, not all of us should start counting our tickets right away. NASA’s probe is only aimed at collecting more data on the asteroid. This includes measurements of its gravity and potential electromagnetic fields, as well as whether it is indeed the nucleus of an object the size of a planet.