As if it were the movie “Don’t look up”, NASA is preparing to send a mission to study the composition of an asteroid 226 kilometers in diameter that could be worth close to 10,000 trillion dollars.
Discovered in 1852 by the Italian astronomer Annibale de Gasparis, the celestial body, nicknamed “16 Psyche”, is located within the Main Asteroid Belt, between the planets Mars and Jupiter, and takes five years to orbit the Sun. It is the asteroid largest type M recorded to date that could also be unusually rich in metals. According to the Psyche mission team, led by Lindy Elkins-Tanton, a researcher at Arizona State University, the core of this asteroid could be made up of iron, nickel and gold. According to the estimates of Forbes, “16 Psyche” could be worth more than the entire world GDP.
Its location makes it virtually impossible to study from Earth, and in space telescopes it only appears as a fuzzy, potato-shaped blob. For this reason, NASA has decided to send a mission that will launch in August 2022 to reach the asteroid in January 2026. The mission, part of NASA’s Discovery program for low-cost robotic space missions, will map and study the properties of the solar body for at least 21 months at a distance 700 kilometers above its surface.
Thanks to the magnetometer, cameras and spectrometers on board the mission, scientists will be able to find out what the surface of 16 Psyche is made of and its origin. At the moment, the main hypothesis considered by the members of the team is that formed in the early days of the solar system, either as the core of a planetesimal, a piece of a planet, or as primeval material that never fused.
NASA has no astronauts
The lack of astronauts could force NASA to delay some of its space missions, such as the Artemis Program, which wants to bring man back to the Moon. If this shortage of workers continues, the space agency would lose the pulse it maintains with China for the domain of space.
According to a report published by NASA’s Office of the Investigator General, the agency has the fewest number of astronauts since the 1970s, due to the high number of retirements and the closure of the space shuttle program.
While in the year 2000, NASA reached its peak with almost 150 astronauts on its team, now it has only 44. Given the challenges facing the agency, including getting humans to Mars, its astronaut corps will play a critical role in the success of the missions.
The lack of astronauts, their training period and various technical and bureaucratic problems have delayed the date of return to the Moon. At the time, the former Vice President of the United States, Mike Pence, indicated that the mission would take place in 2024, but now we will have to wait until 2026 to see another human being walking on the lunar surface.
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Jeff Bezos’ space station has been selected by NASA as a possible replacement for the ISS
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