An event that will occur in 2029 is a description of a NASA spacecraft flyby of asteroid 16 Cyg. Photo: Composite LRPhoto: Composite Jasmine Serras / La Repubblica
The Pot Started successfully Psychological workA vehicle travels A giant asteroid rich in metals Located between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. This body is of great interest because it is believed to contain minerals of equal value 100,000 times the global economy And whose study can give us Clues to the origin of rocky planets of the solar system.
NASA, Live: Follow the latest events from the Psych mission
When will it reach asteroid Psyche?
The NASA spacecraft will enter the orbit of asteroid Psyche in August 2029. It will remain there for nearly two years to map its surface through photographs and study its mineral composition.
Psychic work is taking off successfully
NASA’s Psyche mission, the culmination of six years of work, took off from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
How about a Psyche ship?
The Psyche ship has a car-sized main body and two solar panels from its sides. In total, it is 25 meters long.
Photo: NASA
NASA begins broadcasting
Coverage of NASA’s Psych mission begins. You can see it in the following video:
Where is Asteroid Psyche?
It is located in the Kuiper Belt, a large area of asteroids located between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter.
Why is asteroid Psyche so intriguing?
Astronomers believe that Psyche may be part or all of the planets’ iron cores, the early form of rocky planets like Earth.
They are also thought to be the remnants of an iron-rich body that formed elsewhere in the solar system.
How about Asteroid 16 Psyche?
16 Psyche, or simply Psyche, is a metallic asteroid (type M) with a diameter of 280 km, according to NASA.
Its surface is mainly iron and nickel, although there are small amounts of gold, platinum and other elements.
What is Psych Work?
This is NASA’s first mission to a metallic asteroid in the Solar System. Their goal is to discover the nature and origin of this enigmatic substance composed of precious metals such as gold, platinum, iron and nickel.
NASA Live: Watch the launch of the Psyche mission
Psych Mission launch will take place on October 13 at 9:16 am m (local time in Peru). Its development can be seen live through the official NASA broadcast, which will begin 45 minutes before liftoff.
The spacecraft, about the size of a car and equipped with two giant solar panels, will travel aboard a SpaceX rocket, which will be launched from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
A six year journey
The Psyche mission’s journey to the asteroid of the same name, located 240 million kilometers from Earth, will last a total of Six years.
Humanity will get its first glimpse of Psyche’s surface only when the spacecraft enters the asteroid’s orbit in August 2029.
There, in place, it will spend 21 months, flying over the object at four different altitudes to map its topography, measure its chemical composition and analyze its magnetic field.
At its closest approach to Earth, asteroid 16 Syk is 240 million kilometers away. Photo: Rawpixel
A pioneering work
While NASA has already sent spacecraft to other asteroids to collect samples of their surface rocks, this new probe is the first time the space agency has reached an asteroid. Metallic asteroid (Type M), which contains iron, nickel, platinum and gold.
Astronomers believe that asteroid 16 Cyg, located between 235 and 310 million kilometers from us, is very similar to the cores of the planets closest to the Sun, such as Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars.
“We never get to those cores (so hot and so deep), so this is our only way to see the core,” says Lindy Elkins-Daunton, an astronomer at Arizona State University, the organization that runs the mission. NASA’s Jet Propulsion System in conjunction with the lab.
