Name: The Psyche Mission: Visiting a metal asteroid
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The Psyche Mission: Visiting a metal asteroid

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Space is supported by its audience. When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. .Psyche is a NASA mission expected to launch in 2022 that will explore a 140-mile-wide (225 kilometers) metallic asteroid called 16 Psyche. No spacecraft has ever visited an object like 16 Psyche, which is thought to be the exposed core of a demolished planet. The mission is expected to provide important insights into planetary formation.&nbsp;Along with a mission called that will visit primordial asteroids near Jupiter, Psyche was in January 2017 as part of NASA's Discovery program. "This is what Discovery Program missions are all about — boldly going to places we've never been to enable groundbreaking science," Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington, D.C., said in a at the time.Related: The asteroid 16 Psyche, also referred to as simply "Psyche," was only the 16th asteroid ever discovered according to an informational page about the mission from . It was spotted in 1852 by an Italian astronomer named Annibale de Gasparis, who named it for the ancient Greek goddess of the soul.Psyche has a mass of about&nbsp;440 billion billion pounds (220 billion billion kilograms), making it 0.03% the mass of our moon, according to a . It's the in the solar system — though only a few hundredths of the mass of behemoths like and .Related: Unlike most bodies in the solar system, which are composed of mainly rock, ice or gas, the Massachusetts-sized Psyche is — as much as 95% nickel and iron, which is similar to the . That metallic nature makes the asteroid a compelling subject as researchers speculate about how it could have formed.&nbsp;In one hypothetical scenario, 16 Psyche was once part of a protoplanet in the early whose internal layers separated out into rocky mantle and iron core, . Multiple violent collisions billions of years ago may have cracked this entity open and stripped away its exterior, leaving only a misshapen metal lump behind. Much of the Psyche spacecraft's mission will be scanning the asteroid for clues that either support or reject this story.Psyche (the probe) is 81 feet (24.76 m) long and 24 feet (7.34 m) wide, making it roughly the size of a tennis court with its solar panels extended, according to . The body of the spacecraft, where all its instruments are, is about as big as a golf cart.ASU several instruments that the spacecraft will carry. &nbsp;They include two high-resolution cameras and a spectrometer to determine the asteroid's composition. In addition, Psyche will sport a magnetometer to check if the body has a remnant magnetic field and an instrument to measure the asteroid's gravitational field with high precision. The spacecraft is also equipped with sophisticated new laser communication technology that NASA hopes to use in future missions.&nbsp;After it is launched in August 2022 , the probe Psyche will use low-thrust solar electric propulsion to conduct a gravity assist past in 2023, and is expected to arrive at its target in 2026.&nbsp;Related: The mission plan calls for the Psyche spacecraft to spend 21 months orbiting the asteroid while capturing the first images ever taken of a mainly metal body. Using its instruments, the probe will map and study the asteroid to help researchers determine how it came to be.Data from Psyche will help astronomers figure out how terrestrial planets form. It is difficult to observe the core of rocky planets like Earth, because that structure lies far below the planet's mantle and crust.&nbsp;By studying 16 Psyche up close, researchers how collisions, accretion and time work to create worlds like our own.&nbsp;to keep talking space on the latest missions, night sky and more! And if you have a news tip, correction or comment, let us know at:Get breaking space news and the latest updates on rocket launches, skywatching events and more!Thank you for signing up to Space. You will receive a verification email shortly.There was a problem. Please refresh the page and try again.MORE FROM SPACE...12345

Space is supported by its audience. When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. .Psyche is a NASA mission expected to launch in 2022 that will explore a 140-mile-wide (225 kilometers) metallic asteroid called 16 Psyche. No spacecraft has ever visited an object like 16 Psyche, which is thought to be the exposed core of a demolished planet. The mission is expected to provide important insights into planetary formation.&nbsp;Along with a mission called that will visit primordial asteroids near Jupiter, Psyche was in January 2017 as part of NASA's Discovery...

The Psyche Mission: Visiting a metal asteroid

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