NASA spacecraft leaves for asteroid with rare metals that hold clues to universe
A NASA spacecraft rocketed away from Earth today in an exciting search for an asteroid made of extremely rare metals.
The Psyche spacecraft is set to take six years to reach the potato-shaped rock after it was launched by Elon Musk's SpaceX from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. It will collect material from an asteroid of the same name and it is hoped the matter collected will help scientists better understand other rocky planets and the Earth's core.
“It’s so thrilling,” said Laurie Leshin, director of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Added Arizona State University’s Jim Bell, part of the Psyche team: “What a great ride so far.”
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Psyche launched from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida (AP)An hour after launch, the spacecraft separated successfully from the rocket’s upper stage and floated away, drawing applause from ground controllers. Psyche is now officially bound for an asteroid 144 miles across at its widest and 173 miles long.
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The spacecraft will have to travel a whopping 2 billion miles to reach the rock orbiting the sun. Scientists envision spiky metal craters, huge metal cliffs and metal-encrusted eroded lava flows greenish-yellow from sulfur — “almost certain to be completely wrong,” according to Elkins-Tanton.
It’s also possible that trace amounts of gold, silver, platinum or iridium — iron-loving elements — could be dissolved in the asteroid’s iron and nickel, she said. "There’s a very good chance that it’s going to be outside of our imaginings, and that is my fondest hope," she said.
"It’s long been humans’ dream to go to the metal core of our Earth. I mean, ask Jules Verne," lead scientist Lindy Elkins-Tanton of Arizona State University said ahead of the launch. "The pressure is too high.
She added: "The temperature is too high. The technology is impossible. But there’s one way in our solar system that we can look at a metal core and that is by going to this asteroid."
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The mission costs an enormous $1.2 billion (AP)The mission costs an enormous $1.2 billion and the spacecraft will use a special route to get to the asteroid, using Mars' orbit to slingshot its way there. It will then arrive three years later in 2029 and attempt to go into orbit around it, circling as high as 440 miles and as close as 47 miles until at least 2031.
An impressive and elaborate piece of kit, Psyche has solar panels the size of a tennis court and its main body is the size of a van. It uses solar electric propulsion, relying on xenon gas-fed thrusters and their gentle blue-glowing pulses to move.
An experimental communication system is also along for the ride, using lasers instead of radio waves in an attempt to expand the flow of data from deep space to Earth. NASA expects the test to yield more than 10 times the amount of data, enough to transmit videos from the moon or Mars one day.
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