NASA successfully launches its Psyche mission to a 10,000 BUADRILLION asteroid

After months of anticipation, NASA’s Psyche mission finally launched today.

The US space agency launched at 10:19 ET (3:19 BST) from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

“Feel the noise! Ain’t nothing but a good time. All aboard the #MissionToPsyche! “Next stop: A metal world,” NASA tweeted.

Psyche is a space probe built to explore a 4.5 billion year old asteroid called 16 Psyche, which scientists believe is the asteroid packed with iron, nickel and gold worth over $10,000 quadrillion (£8,072 quadrillion).

That’s enough money to make everyone on Earth a billionaire – although NASA can confirm this, there are currently no plans to mine the precious metals.

After months of anticipation, NASA’s Psyche mission finally launched today. After bad weather earlier this week, the US space agency launched from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida at 10:19 ET (3:19 BST).

Psyche is a space probe built to explore a 4.5 billion-year-old asteroid called 16 Psyche, which scientists say could be full of iron, nickel and gold worth over $10,000 quadrillion (£8,072 quadrillion).

Psyche’s launch had already been delayed once when the $1.2bn (£988m) spacecraft was originally due to launch on October 5, but was then pushed back a week so engineers could finalize its configuration Engines could be updated.

Once it reaches orbit, Psyche will begin a six-year, 2.2 billion-mile (3.6 billion-kilometer) journey to a space rock of the same name, 16 Psyche.

This 170 mile (280 kilometer) wide asteroid is located in the Main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter.

No spacecraft has ever visited an object like 16 Psyche, which is thought to contain significant amounts of metal on its surface rather than rock or ice. But if everything goes according to plan, the orbiter will arrive at its destination in July 2029.

The irregular and potato-like asteroid is believed to be the exposed core of a destroyed planet Protoplanet – the building blocks of the rocky planets in our solar system: Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars.

“Feel the noise! Ain’t nothing but a good time. All aboard the #MissionToPsyche! “Next stop: A metal world,” NASA tweeted.

The irregular and potato-like asteroid (pictured) is believed to be the exposed core of a destroyed protoplanet – the building blocks of the rocky planets in our solar system: Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars

If so, this could provide a unique opportunity to study how planets like ours formed.

Scientists say the space rock is most likely a survivor of several violent hit-and-run collisions that were common during the formation of the solar system.

During this shattering and merging of smaller planetesimals, the resulting larger objects initially melted completely.

Heavy metals then sink into the core while lighter rock floats to the top.

However, NASA believes that after reaching this stage, 16 Psyche was hit by another asteroid, stripping it of its rocky mantle and leaving behind a bare metal core that was discovered today.

Spectroscopic studies and radar observations suggest that it is a surface up to 95 percent nickel and iron, a similar composition to the Earth’s core.

If 16 Psyche is indeed loaded with precious metals, according to Dr. It could be worth a lot of money to Linda Elkins-Tanton, a space scientist at MIT.

She calculated that the iron in 16 Psyche alone would be worth $10,000 quadrillion (£8,072 quadrillion).

Assuming that the market for asteroid materials is on Earth, this could cause the value of precious metals to decline and completely devalue all holdings, including those of governments and all companies that extract, distribute and trade such raw materials become.

Ultimately, it could lead to the collapse of the entire economy.

Of course, this is all speculative and hypothetical, because even if the space rock were worth anywhere near that much, it’s not like it could be easily returned to Earth, and there are currently no plans to do so.

The Mission: This graphic provides a step-by-step guide to Psyche’s journey to 16 Psyche

How the journey will work: The spacecraft will embark on a six-year, 2.2 billion mile (3.6 billion kilometer) journey to a space rock of the same name, 16 Psyche. In May 2026, it will need gravity assistance from Mars along its path before reaching its destination in 2029

Location: The 170-mile (280-kilometer) asteroid lies in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter

16 Psyche was actually only the 16th asteroid ever discovered, it was discovered in 1852 by the Italian astronomer Annibale de Gasparis.

It has an average diameter of about 136 miles (220 kilometers) and contains about 1 percent of the total mass of the entire asteroid belt – about 440 billion pounds (220 billion billion kilograms), to be exact.

This makes it one of the twelve largest small planets that orbit the sun between Mars and Jupiter.

The Psyche spacecraft will carry several instruments, including two high-resolution cameras and a spectrometer, to determine the asteroid’s composition.

It also has a magnetometer to check whether the space rock has a residual magnetic field, as well as an instrument to measure its gravitational field.

The orbiter will spend a total He orbited the asteroid for 21 months, taking the very first images of 16 Psyche.

The hope is that detailed mapping and study of the asteroid will help researchers determine how it formed, which in turn could shed light on the formation of our own planet.