NASA sends a ship to explore an asteroid made of gold, platinum and diamonds

After more than a year of delay a pot He is preparing to launch a new space mission tomorrow, heading to a specific celestial body in our cosmic neighborhood.

It’s about psychological task, Which seeks to study a metallic asteroid called by the same name, which is one of the asteroids The most interesting objects in the asteroid beltas its composition Rich in minerals. It is believed that in addition to iron and nickel, the asteroid could also contain diamonds, platinum and gold.

“We have seen other meteorites that are mostly metallic, however What makes Psyche unique is that it may be made entirely of iron and nickelsays Tracy Baker, a planetary scientist at the Southwest Research Institute in Texas, US.

Baker is part of a recent investigation into… psychological surface. Some estimates indicate that It can exceed the total economic value of all psychological minerals 10,000 quadrillion US dollars. Taking into account that the value of the global economy in 2019 was 142 billion US dollars According to German data portal Statista, Psyche minerals can be said to be valuable About 70,000 times more than the economy of the entire planet.

“What makes Psyche and other asteroids interesting is that they are considered to be the formation rocks of the solar system. When we arrive, we will understand whether that is the case, and if not, it will be just as exciting,” Baker added of the body. It is approximately three times farther from the Sun than Earth.In the middle of the asteroid belt located between Mars and Jupiter.

The mission was supposed to launch today on board Falcon Heavy rocket From the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, but bad weather conditions caused it to be postponed until tomorrow at 2:19 pm GMT (11:19 Argentine time).

The breath has an irregular, potato-like shape. If it were split in half horizontally at the equator (imagine a flat oval), it would be 280 kilometers (173 miles) wide at its widest point and 232 kilometers (144 miles) long. It has an area of ​​64,000 square miles (165,800 square kilometers).

The asteroid orbits the sun between Mars and Jupiter at a distance of between 235 million and 309 million miles. (378 million to 497 million km) from the Sun. This means 2.5 to 3.3 astronomical units (AU), with 1 AU being the distance between Earth and the Sun. It takes Psyche about five Earth years to complete one revolution around the Sun, but it takes just over four hours to rotate once on its axis (a psychic “day”).

“Until recently, Scientific consensus Is that the asteroid Psyche is mainly composed of metal. The latest data indicates that the asteroid may be a mixture of metal and silicates, the same material found in glass and sand. The best analysis suggests that Psyche may have been made of a mixture of rock and metal, which is the case The mineral makes up between 30% and 60% of its volume. “The asteroid’s composition was determined through radar observations and measurements of the asteroid’s thermal inertia (the rate at which the body gains or re-radiates heat).”

He adds: “By combining optical and radar observations, scientists have created a 3D model of Psyche that shows evidence of two crater-like depressions. I suggest that There is great variation in the mineral content and color of the asteroid on its surface.. But until NASA’s Psyche mission encounters the Psyche asteroid up close for the first time, we won’t know what it really looks like.

Psyche will travel to the asteroid using solar electric propulsion (low propulsion), after a flyby of Mars and gravity assist. It will reach its protoplanet of the same name in August 2029. Once in orbit, the spacecraft will map and study Psyche using a multispectral imager, a gamma-ray and neutron spectrometer, a magnetometer, and a radio instrument (to measure gravity). The goal of the mission is, among other things, to determine whether Psyche is truly the core of a planet without a crust.

Psyche was discovered by an Italian astronomer Anibal de Gasparis On March 17, 1852. He named the asteroid Psyche, Greek goddess of the soul Who was born mortal and married Eros (Roman Cupid), the god of love. Because it was the 16th asteroid to be discovered, it is sometimes known as 16 Psyche.

Scientists believe that Psyche may consist of large amounts of metal from the core of the young planet, one of the building blocks of our solar system. The asteroid likely survived several violent collisions common when the solar system was forming. Therefore, Psyche can tell us how the Earth’s core and the cores of other rocky or terrestrial planets came to be.

The mission is led by Arizona State University. NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory is responsible for mission management, operations, and navigation.

– Determine whether the soul is a nucleus or an unmolten substance.

– Verifying the relative ages of areas on the surface of the soul.

-Determine whether small metallic objects contain the same optical elements expected in the Earth’s high-pressure core.

-Assessing whether the soul was formed in more oxidizing or more reducing conditions of the Earth’s interior.

-Describing the terrain of the soul.