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NASA wants to uncover the mystery behind the asteroid “16 Psyche.” that may contain a priceless treasure trove of minerals. “We’ve been to all the different planets, we’ve been to other asteroids. But we’ve never visited a body that has been made of entirely metal,” said Carol Polanskey, project scientist for the Psyche mission. Now NASA, led by researchers at Arizona State University, plans to send an unmanned spacecraft to orbit 16 Psyche – an asteroid roughly the size of Massachusetts, made of iron and other precious metals. The mission’s leader estimates that the iron alone on today’s market would be worth $10,000 quadrillion.
Previously: NASA Selects Two Missions to Visit Asteroids
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NASA Asteroid Mission -- Metals "Worth" Ten Thousand Quadrillion Dollars
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If life gives you lemons, make lemonade.
(Score: 2) by ledow on Friday January 20 2017, @02:59PM
Great.
So in Mission Shove Asteroid out of the way, how much does said asteroid weigh?
If only there were a way we could land on the thing, find out what it's made of, and determine its shape, size, density, mass, structure, etc. so we could know how much we needed to shove it out of the way and/or blow it up.
Er... hold on a mo...
P.S. It's really hard to gauge mass without seeing or measuring a quantifiable gravitational effect.