A GIANT asteroid twice as wide as Wales contains enough metal to make everyone on Earth a billionaire.
The cosmic lump called Psyche 16 sits 230million miles from Earth and is one of the heaviest objects in the Solar System, according to new research.
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Using the Hubble space telescope, scientists took a closer look than ever before at the object, which is believed to be worth up to $10,000 quadrillion.
They described their findings in a study published Monday in The Planetary Science Journal.
Most asteroids are made of rock and ice, but Psyche is made of dense metal, leading experts to speculate that it’s the remnants of a planet in the early stages of development, known as a protoplanet.
While it was forming around a distant star, the Psyche planet to smashed apart by a collision with another large object, scientists said.
NASA launches space missions to Jupiter’s ‘trojans’ and METAL asteroid
It left behind a 140-mile wide blob of metal that now orbits between Mars and Jupiter.
“It’s possible that as a Psyche protoplanet was forming,” said study co-author Dr Tracy Becker, a scientist at the Southwest Research Institute in Texas.
“It was struck by an-other object in our solar system and lost its mantle and crust.”
Psyche was discovered in the mid-19th Century, but its unusual makeup has only been revealed by more recent observations.
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Previous estimates have suggested that Psyche’s various metals are worth a gargantuan £10,000 quadrillion. That means if it were carried back to Earth, it would destroy commodity prices and cause the world’s economy – worth roughly £60trillion – to collapse.
According to the new study, which marks the first ultraviolet (UV) observations of Psyche, the object may be made entirely of iron and nickel.
Previous observations had suggested the asteroid may have also been made of gold.
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“We’ve seen meteorites that are mostly metal, but Psyche could be unique in that it might be an asteroid that is totally made of iron and nickel,” Dr Becker said.
Nasa is launching a mission to probe the asteroid in summer 2022. Dubbed the Discovery Mission, it will arrive at Psyche around 2026.
The mission is scheduled to last two years and will mark the first visit by a probe to a space object made entirely of metal.
Researchers say they’ve got no plans to mine the asteroid for resources, and will instead use it to analyse how planets may have formed in the early solar system.
What do we know about quadrillion pound asteroid Psyche?
- Arizona State University researchers say that Psyche 16 was found in 1852 by Italian astronomer Annibale de Gasparis, who named it after the ancient Greek goddess of the soul.
- What gives asteroid Psyche great scientific interest is that it is made of metal.
- It appears to be composed of one of the building blocks of the Sun’s planetary system and could provide clues to how our planet formed.
- The asteroid is most likely a survivor of violent hit-and-run collisions, common when the solar system was forming.
- Every world explored so far by humans (except gas giant planets such as Jupiter or Saturn) has a surface of ice or rock or a mixture of the two.
- Because we cannot see or measure Earth’s core directly, Psyche offers a unique window into the violent history of collisions and accretion that created the terrestrial planets.
“What makes Psyche and the other asteroids so interesting is that they’re considered to be the building blocks of the solar system,” Dr Becker said.
“To understand what really makes up a planet and to potentially see the inside of a planet is fascinating.
“Once we get to Psyche, we’re really going to understand if that’s the case, even if it doesn’t turn out as we expect. Any time there’s a surprise, it’s always exciting.”
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While Psyche 16’s vast resources will remain untapped, space mining is expected to take off within the next decade.
Two space mining companies – backed by big name celebs – are gearing up for a gold rush after asteroid ownership was made legal in 2015.
Deep Space Industries and Planetary Resources each have their eyes on the 2011 UW158 asteroid which is twice the size of the Tower of London and worth up to £4.5trillion.
In other news, a huge asteroid dubbed the “God of Chaos” could hit Earth within the next 50 years, according to scientists.
It recently emerged that an asteroid obliterated early human civilisations in a catastrophic collision with Earth 13,000 years ago.
And, scientists have discovered a “Super-Earth” 31 light-years away that humans could one day colonise.
What do you think Nasa will find on Psyche? Let us know in the comments!
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