spirit 16 is the name of the multi-million dollar asteroid that is a space gold megamine. This astral body can make millionaires for all the inhabitants of the Earth. Its value, which is 300 times greater than the world economy as a whole, has generated significant international interest in its study.
The asteroid soul It was discovered in 1852 by the Italian astronomer Annibale de Gasparis, and is located 370 million km from our planet, in the belt asteroids Between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. It has a diameter of 226 kilometers asteroid The largest metal-containing asteroids. It takes about five Earth years to go around the sun.
Why all this interest in studying it?
According to a scientific article, at least 30% of its surface is made of metal and designed to contain iron, nickel, platinum and gold. All of this as a whole would have a value close to 10,000 quadrillion dollars, 300 times the size of the global economy.
It is believed to have been part of the core of an unformed planet. If so, could it provide us with more information about how the cores of Earth and the cores of other planets formed.
“We’ve seen other meteorites that are mostly metal, but what makes them unique is spirit “It may be made entirely of iron and nickel,” said Tracy Baker, a planetary scientist at the Southwest Research Institute in Texas, US. Becker is also part of a more recent investigation into the surface spirit.
“What makes spirit and others asteroids They are considered the formation rocks of the solar system. When we get there, we’ll understand if that’s the case, and if not, it’s just as exciting,” says Becker.
To deepen investigations, he did NASA He will launch a mission in 2022, in which he will try to get as close as possible to the asteroid.
Photo: NASA
Henry Stone, JPL project manager NASA He says, “We talked to our mission and navigation design team and they were actually able to get to probably the best trajectory, by flying over Mars. It’s going to go through Mars, and that’s going to give us gravity assist, and it’s going to use the propulsion system to move slowly toward the end of 2025, and it’s going to get there.” in early 2026″.
Scientific objectives that are proposed by NASA Understanding: Understanding iron cores, examining the inside of your body, and discovering a new type of orb made of metal. The mission plan calls for the spacecraft to spend 21 months orbiting asteroid She studies her body.
The launch is expected to be carried out by a rocket from Elon Musk’s subsidiary SpaceX.
However, the NASA She has no plans to bring precious metals from her spiritNor does it currently have the technology to extract it. The main objective of the mission is purely scientific.
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