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NASA spacecraft is flying towards $10,000,000,000,000,000,000 asteroid at 124,000 mph with one specific goal

Home> Technology> NASA

Published 13:46 21 Feb 2025 GMT

NASA spacecraft is flying towards $10,000,000,000,000,000,000 asteroid at 124,000 mph with one specific goal

The asteroid could revolutionize what we know about how our own planet formed

Ellie Kemp

Ellie Kemp

Featured Image Credit: NASA/Buradaki/Getty Images
Ellie Kemp
Ellie Kemp

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NASA is investigating an asteroid worth one hundred quintillion dollars for one very specific reason.

Back in October 2023, the space agency began its Psyche mission and launched a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket to go and probe 16 Psyche, one of the largest discovered M-type asteroids.

Most asteroids we know of are made up of rock and ice - but this one is pretty special.

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The asteroid has an estimated surface area of 64,000 square miles (165,800 square km), making it almost the size of Tunisia which has a total area of 63,170 square miles.

However, 16 Psyche is believed to be made up of up to 60 percent of iron and nickel - lucrative metals which could hypothetically make everyone on Earth a billionaire.

Anyway, the spacecraft is set to travel a total of 2.2 billion miles (3.5 billion km) to its destination, located in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter.

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Despite traveling at 124,000 mph, the Psyche craft is still pretty far off from its target.

Psyche is set to conduct a 'gravity assist maneuver' at Mars next year before heading onwards to the asteroid - but it won't get there until 2029.

Rather than landing on 16 Psyche, the spacecraft will instead orbit it for 917 days, from August 5 2029 to October 31 2031.

How will NASA investigate 16 Psyche?

The Psyche spacecraft began its journey in October 2023 (CHANDAN KHANNA/AFP via Getty Images)
The Psyche spacecraft began its journey in October 2023 (CHANDAN KHANNA/AFP via Getty Images)

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Once in orbit, the spacecraft is set to map and study Psyche in a number of different ways, hopefully providing scientists with new data on the extraordinary asteroid.

A multispectral imager will be among the tools employed, which captures image data within specific wavelength ranges across the electromagnetic spectrum.

A gamma-ray and neutron spectrometer, a magnetometer, and a radio instrument for gravity measurement will also be used.

Why is NASA investigating the asteroid?

This huge, rare asteroid could make us all billionaires... hypothetically (Juan Gaertner/Science Photo Library/Getty Images)
This huge, rare asteroid could make us all billionaires... hypothetically (Juan Gaertner/Science Photo Library/Getty Images)

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The mission’s goal is, 'among other things,' to 'determine whether Psyche is indeed the core of a planetesimal,' NASA explained.

A planetesimal is 'a minute planet' which could 'come together with many others under gravitation to form a planet.'

Findings could also shed light on how our very own planet Earth started life, too.

As NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab explains: "Deep within rocky, terrestrial planets - including Earth - scientists infer the presence of metallic cores, but these lie unreachably far below the planets' rocky mantles and crusts.

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"Because we cannot see or measure Earth's core directly, Psyche offers a unique window into the violent history of collisions and accretion that created terrestrial planets."

  • NASA issues historic update on journey to $10,000,000,000,000,000,000 asteroid
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