NASA sets off for Psyche-16: the mysterious trillion-dollar 'floating mine' in the asteroid belt
The Psyche space probe is already a little closer to the asteroid that bears its name, and will reach it in the summer of 2029. After two postponements in eight days due to bad weather conditions, finally at 4:19 p.m., Spanish time, and with overcast skies, the spacecraft took off from Launch Complex 39A at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, aboard a Falcon rocket. Heavy from Elon Musk's Space
The odyssey to reach one of the most enigmatic objects in the solar system will travel more than 3,540 million kilometers. It will first reach Mars, where it is expected to arrive in 2026, and there it will obtain the gravity boost necessary to reach its destination in the summer of three years later.. A trip like going to the moon and back 10,000 times.
Psyche-16 is one of the largest objects in the asteroid belt located between Jupiter and Mars.. It is believed that it could have been just another planet in the solar system if it had not been for a catastrophic collision that occurred billions of years ago, which took away the mantle, leaving the core exposed to outer space, which would serve to find out exactly how It is ours.
The enigmas of asteroid 16 Psyche, the failed planet that contains 12 trillion kilos of metals
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The result is a floating potato of 165,800 square kilometers, which if cut in half would be about 280 kilometers wide by 232 kilometers long.. It takes just four hours to orbit itself, and five Earth years to orbit the sun.. It emerged from earthly anonymity in 1852, when it caught the attention of the Italian astronomer and mathematician Annibale de Gasperis, who named it in honor of the Greek goddess of the soul.
Once it reaches the asteroid, the probe will study it for 26 months, orbiting closer and closer, until it finally crashes into its metallic soil in 2031.. It will be the first time that humanity, specifically Arizona State University (United States) and NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, explores an asteroid rich in metals.
Animation of the probe approaching the asteroid. AP
“It's the first time we're going to an intermediate world. All the previous times we have gone to planets and objects that are rock and ice,” but never to a satellite like Psyche, which “could yield unthinkable findings,” said Bob Cabana, associate administrator of this space agency.
Although most of Psyche is thought to be iron and nickel, it may also contain gold and silver.. Psyche's own principal investigator, Lindy Elkins-Tanton, estimated a few years ago the value that all these minerals could have on Earth at 10 trillion dollars, but the truth will not be known for another six years.
A magnetic field like that of the Earth
“We hope that by studying the asteroid we will learn more about the iron core of other planets in our solar system, including the most important planet to us, the one we live on,” Earth, said Nikki Fox, NASA Associate Administrator for Science. .
The Psyche platform, which is 24.8 meters long and has solar panels. It is equipped with a magnetometer designed to detect and measure the magnetic field that the asteroid is believed to have, similar to that which allows life on Earth, and obtain data that would help scientists better understand the formation of the Solar System.
It is also equipped with a multispectral imager, and a gamma ray and neutron spectrometer, all designed to measure, map, survey, and solve the mystery of the geological composition and chemical elements of the asteroid.
The launch of Psyche was scheduled for 2022 but was postponed due to problems in the navigation software. The weather conditions and having more time to verify the ship's cold gas and nitrogen thrusters once again postponed the ship's takeoff on two occasions since last day 5.