"The goal was to know what to look out for once NASA's mission to the space rock, which launched in October 2023, arrives roughly three and a half years from now."
"While the latest paper doesn't necessarily exclude any of these possibilities - its simulations support both hypotheses - the goal was to know what to look out for."
"16 Psyche's size makes it far more approachable than the thousands of miles we'd have to drill into the Earth."
"Researchers say the two enormous crater-like depressions could be closely related to its still largely unknown origin story."
16 Psyche is a 173-mile asteroid in the asteroid belt, potentially rich in metals, raising interest for future mining. Researchers are investigating whether it is the core of a planetesimal or a mixture of iron and rock. The asteroid features two large craters, hinting at its origin. A recent study supports both hypotheses, aiming to guide NASA's upcoming mission, which will arrive in about three and a half years, to uncover its history and composition.
Read at Futurism
Unable to calculate read time
Collection
[
|
...
]