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Anything that shines … can be gold. At least, that's what scientists think of a brilliant asteroid, the size of Massachusetts, which can be stuffed with precious metals.
NASA recently approved a mission to visit space rock, which orbits the sun in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. The mission – the first on a metal asteroid – could reveal secrets about the early days of our solar system while laying the groundwork for a future space mining industry.
"We think the metallic class of asteroids is the trace of the old planetary nuclei," said Jim Bell, scientist in planetary sciences at Arizona State University in Tempe and NASA's Senior Research Scientist for Psyche Mission.
Bell said that the asteroid, known officially as (16) Psyche, could be the nucleus of a nascent planet that would have lost its outer layers after colliding with another object there is billions of years. "This is what we believe to be: the exposed nucleus of an ancient planetesimal of the first solar system," he said, adding that the near-Psyche study could allow scientists to better understand what is in center of our planet.
"We can not go to the center of the Earth because the pressures and temperatures are too high," he said. "The same goes for the nucleus of Mars, the moon and the other planets. But fortunately for us, we think that there is a core in the main asteroid belt that is exposed for us.
The solar powered Psyche satellite will be launched in 2022 and will arrive at the asteroid on January 31, 2026. It will study Psyche and map its surface for 21 months with the help of a trio scientific instruments: a magnetometer to measure what remains of the magnetic field of the asteroid; a spectrometer to map its chemical composition; and a camera to take high resolution images of the asteroid.
Angel Abbud-Madrid, director of the Colorado School of Mines' Center for Space Resources in Golden, said he was eager to see what Psyche's close-up look would reveal about metal asteroids, which are relatively rare in the solar system. .
"We know very little about them," Abbud-Madrid said. "We have seen these asteroids only in telescopes, so these are very unique objects."
Observations made using telescopes suggest that Psyche is mainly composed of nickel and iron, but Abbud-Madrid said that a visiting spacecraft could also discover that space rock is abundant in even more metals precious, such as gold and platinum.
This potential premium has captured the imagination of venture capitalists eager to profit from the mining of asteroids, with some believing that Psyche could contain metals worth an estimated $ 700 quintillion. It has also attracted the attention of the media, some calling Psyche "a golden asteroid" and others claiming that the space rock could turn celestial prospectors into billions of billions.
But experts warn that even though Psyche holds a lot of precious metals and can be brought back to Earth – a feat that would require technologies and infrastructure that do not exist yet – the monetary value could be much lower.
"Psyche is a huge asteroid, and if it's a highly concentrated metal, then yes, it's an exorbitant amount," said Abbud-Madrid. "But of course, if you bring in so much, the market value will go down."
Abbud-Madrid and Bell agreed that it might be more logical to use metal extracted from Psyche in space rather than restoring it on Earth. "We could use metals, ice or rocky materials in the future to build settlements or electronic components for use in space," Bell said. "At the moment, we are looking for these materials by means of telescopes and sending spacecraft to these objects, so we will be doing field checks with the Psyche mission."
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