Quadrillion-Dollar Asteroid 16 Psyche May Be Less Metallic Than Expected

A unique metal asteroid orbiting the Sun between Mars and Jupiter could end up looking like Bennu, the asteroid NASA's OSIRIS-REx mission recently claimed.

New research, titled "Constraining the Regolith Composition of Asteroid (16) Psyche via Laboratory Visible Near-infrared Spectroscopy," reveals that 16 Psyche is far less metallic than previously assumed. Instead, it is thought to be an intact exposed iron-nickel core of an early planet. As a result, Forbes speculated that this asteroid might be worth a stunning $10,000 quadrillion.

16 Psyche was discovered in 1852 by Italian astronomer Annibale de Gasparis at a distance of about 230 million miles (370 million kilometers) from Earth. It was named by the fact that it was the 16th asteroid ever discovered.

16 Psyche is roughly the same size as Massachusetts in the United States. The dwarf planet Ceres is the largest object in the Asteroid Belt, which lies between Mars and Jupiter. Still, astronomers estimate that 16 Psyche contains around 1% of the material in the belt.

Asteroid 16 Psyche is assumed to be the exposed iron core of a small planet that failed to develop during the Solar System's early days, based on its surface.

Scientists mixed various materials in a lab and evaluated their light patterns until they matched telescope observations of the asteroid in this new study.

Psyche is BIG, for an asteroid

The findings indicate that the asteroid may not be as metallic or dense as previously imagined. It claims that 16 Psyche is 82.5 percent metal, 7% low-iron pyroxene, and 10.5 percent carbonaceous chondrite, indicating that it was likely impacted by other asteroids. In other words, a strew of rubble akin to Bennu's.

So it's not 95 percent metal, as previously thought.

"Our work shows that 16 Psyche is a lot more interesting than expected," lead author David Cantillo, an undergraduate student at UArizona, said per ScienceDaily. "That drop in metallic content and bulk density is interesting because it shows that 16 Psyche is more modified than previously thought."

Psyche as a rubble pile would be unexpected, Cantillo said. Yet despite its high metallic content, Cantillo said their data continues to reveal low-density estimates.

The fact that 16 Psyche has a lower metallic composition and density than previously anticipated suggests a radically different creation story for the planet than the "failed planet" notion.

Cantillo speculated that the asteroid might have collided with asteroids carrying the more common carbonaceous chondrites, resulting in the formation of the surface layer seen today. This was visible in photos of the asteroid Vesta taken by NASA's Dawn mission.

So, how does Psyche's skin look? What is the age of it? Is it the core of a distant planet, and did it form in the same way as Earth's core did? These are some of the questions NASA's Psyche mission will attempt to address.

NASA's Psyche spacecraft is set to launch in August 2022 and will arrive on January 31, 2026, following a fly-by of Mars in 2023.

The Psyche spacecraft will journey to the asteroid using solar power and electric propulsion systems, orbiting it for 21 months.

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