Golden asteroid worth $10,000QUADRILLION will be probed by Nasa

NASA is getting ready to probe a massive asteroid that contains so many precious metals it’s worth more than our global economy.

The US space agency’s asteroid probe will depart for the space rock in August.

Maxar/ASU/P. Rubin/NASA/JPL-CaltechNasa plans to launch a mission to the ‘golden asteroid’ this summer[/caption]

The expensive asteroid is called 16 Psyche.

It’s speculated to be worth $10,000quadrillion.

In comparison, the world’s economy is currently worth around $84.5 trillion.

Psyche could have enough gold to make us all billionaires.

That may sound great but economic experts worry it could destroy the economy and send the world into chaos.

Luckily, Nasa’s 2022 mission isn’t planning on mining Psyche for its gold but it does want to study it.

Scientists want to work out exactly what it’s made of and how much it’s really worth.

The mission will be Nasa’s first visit to a metallic asteroid.

So far Psyche has been studied from afar by the Hubble Space Telescope and most things we know about it are estimations.

We know 16 Psyche is nestled between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter and we think it’s made of solid metal.

The giant potato shaped rock is about 140 miles wide.

Its brightness suggests it’s largely made up of nickel, iron or gold.

Nasa’s Discovery Mission should arrive at 16 Psyche in 2026.

It reckons Psyche is a survivor of violent hit-and-run collisions between planets which were common when the solar system was forming.

That means it could tell us how Earth’s core and the cores of the other terrestrial planets were formed.

Nasa wants to determine its exact composition and also examine its four mile crater.

It’s hoped the crater could teach us how to deflect an asteroid of this side and prevent it from hitting Earth.

Nasa’s spacecraft should also map the asteroid and work out how old it is.

The current plan is to launch it on one of Elon Musk’s SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket’s this summer.

The Psyche spacecraft should fly past Mars in May 2023 before continuing another three years into space for its final destination.

In other news, Nasa has upgraded its asteroid hazard software with some key changes that should help it better detect potentially dangerous space rocks.

Nasa has revealed stunning footage of a solar flare in action.

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