Psyche: NASA's mission to study metal-rich asteroid to launch on Oct 12 | All you need to know

The American space agency, NASA is planning to send a high-tech spacecraft called Psyche to an asteroid of the same name, 16 Psyche. It will be a first-of-its-kind mission to study a metal-rich asteroid, which aims to help scientists learn more about the formation of rocky bodies in our solar system.

The launch of the mission will take place on Thursday (Oct 12) when NASA’s Psyche spacecraft will take off from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida and travel 2.2 billion miles.

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Here is everything to know about NASA’s Psyche asteroid mission:

Aim of NASA’s Psyche asteroid mission

As per the data obtained from Earth-based radar and optical telescopes, scientists concluded that the asteroid Psyche could be part of the metal-rich interior of a planetesimal, a building block of a rocky planet that never formed. The rock might have collided with other large bodies during its early formation and lost its outer rocky shell.

So exploring Psyche could provide information into the history of violent collisions and accumulation of matter that created planets.

Psyche mission is a team effort of NASA and Arizona State University

The Psyche asteroid mission is a collaboration of NASA and Arizona State University (ASU). The principal investigator of the mission, Lindy Elkins Tanton, is based at ASU.

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NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California is managingthe mission for the agency’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington. Managed for NASA by Caltech in Pasadena, JPL is also responsible for system engineering, integration and test, and mission operations.

NASA’s Launch Services Program at Kennedy Space Center is managing launch operations and has procuredthe SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket.

How to watch the launch of NASA’s Psyche asteroid mission?

The mission websites nasa.gov/psyche and psyche.asu.edu will post official news about the spacecraft’s journey. NASA and ASU will also post regular social media updates on Facebook, Instagram, and X. To watch the launch live, follow the link below-

How Psyche’s study will bedifferent from other objectsin the solar system?

Other solar system bodies like Mars, Venus, and Earth are comprised of iron oxides but Psyche’s surface doesn’t seem to feature much of these chemical compounds. This suggests that the asteroid’s history differs from standard stories of planetary formation.

If the asteroid proves to be leftover core material from a planetary building block, scientists will learn how its history resembles and diverges from that of the rocky planets. And if scientists discover that Psyche is not an exposed core, it may prove to be a never-before-seen kind of primordial solar system object.

(With inputs from agencies)

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