NASA Psyche mission to explore an asteroid housing precious metals in 2022

NASA's official website has listed a mission by the name 'Psyche' which is gearing up for a launch in 2022. The exciting mission by NASA aims at exploring the Asteroid Psyche which is believed by scientists to house precious metals worth quadrillions. NASA has deemed asteroid Psyche to be one of the most intriguing targets in the main asteroid belt.

While asteroids are most commonly known to be made up of rocky or icy bodies, scientists are affirmative that Psyche is built entirely out of iron and nickel. The unique metal asteroid has been spotted orbiting the sun between Mars and Jupiter and NASA plans on arriving at the asteroid's orbit in 2026. 

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NASA's Psyche mission

The official website of NASA has informatively listed down the mission objectives and its course in order to explain its reason behind exploring the unique asteroid. As scientists cannot measure or see the Earth's core directly, Psyche can give an opportunity for researchers to have a better understanding of the 'violent history of collisions and accretion that created terrestrial planets'. Read below to know the goals and objectives of the mission - 

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Goals of the mission

• Understand a previously unexplored building block of planet formation: iron cores.
• Look inside terrestrial planets, including Earth, by directly examining the interior of a differentiated body, which otherwise could not be seen.
• Explore a new type of world. For the first time, examine a world made not of rock and ice, but metal.

Objectives of the mission

• Determine whether Psyche is a core, or if it is unmelted material.
• Determine the relative ages of regions of Psyche's surface.
• Determine whether small metal bodies incorporate the same light elements as are expected in the Earth's high-pressure core.
• Determine whether Psyche was formed under conditions more oxidizing or more reducing than Earth's core.
• Characterize Psyche's topography.

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Image courtesy - NASA official website

In 2022, the Psyche spacecraft is expected to launch from the Kenndy Space Center in Florida, USA. The Psyche spacecraft will then flyby Mars in 2023. The spacecraft will have a space electric cruise of 3.5 years before entering Psyche's asteroid orbit in 2026. It will then spend 2026-2027 orbiting the asteroid. 

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