Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

SoylentNews is powered by your submissions, so send in your scoop. Only 12 submissions in the queue.

Submission Preview

Link to Story

NASA to Voyage to 'Golden Asteroid' Worth $10,000 Quadrillion This Fall

Accepted submission by requerdanos at 2023-06-12 17:36:31
Science

NASA to voyage to 'golden asteroid' worth $10,000 quadrillion this fall [chron.com]:

Riches beyond our wildest dreams are apparently within reach--at least, within the reach of NASA--in the form of an asteroid made of gold and other metals valued in the neighborhood of ten thousand quadrillion dollars.

[Psyche,] the ultra-valuable asteroid—which appears to be made largely of iron, nickel, gold [iop.org] and other rare metals—orbits the Sun [chron.com] between Mars and Jupiter [chron.com]. It measures 140 miles wide and is shaped somewhat like a potato [nasa.gov], according to astronomers.

It's been said [globalnews.ca] that Psyche could be worth $10,000 quadrillion—more than the entire economy on our planet.

[...]The Psyche mission would be NASA's first-ever [chron.com] visit to a world rich in metal, rather than rock or ice. The spacecraft is expected to reach [the] asteroid in August 2029[.]

Journal Reference:
Becker, Tracy et. al. HST UV Observations of Asteroid (16) Psyche, The Planetary Science Journal (DOI: https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/PSJ/abb67e [doi.org])


Original Submission