{"id":103098,"date":"2020-03-01T13:42:54","date_gmt":"2020-03-01T21:42:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2020\/03\/spacex-to-launch-nasas-psyche-mission-to-metal-asteroid"},"modified":"2020-03-01T13:42:54","modified_gmt":"2020-03-01T21:42:54","slug":"spacex-to-launch-nasas-psyche-mission-to-metal-asteroid","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2020\/03\/spacex-to-launch-nasas-psyche-mission-to-metal-asteroid","title":{"rendered":"SpaceX to Launch NASA\u2019s Psyche Mission to Metal Asteroid"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/spacex-to-launch-nasas-psyche-mission-to-metal-asteroid2.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>NASA has contracted SpaceX to carry out the launch for its upcoming Psyche mission to a strange metal asteroid in our solar system. The launch will use one of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.digitaltrends.com\/cool-tech\/spacex-launches-falcon-heavy-but-loses-core-booster-in-crash-landing\/\">SpaceX\u2019s Falcon Heavy rockets<\/a>, for a cost of $117 million.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe Psyche mission will journey to a unique metal-rich asteroid, also named Psyche, which orbits the Sun between Mars and Jupiter,\u201d NASA explained in a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nasa.gov\/press-release\/nasa-awards-launch-services-contract-for-the-psyche-mission\">statement<\/a>. \u201cThe asteroid is considered unique, as it appears to largely be made of the exposed nickel-iron core of an early planet \u2014 one of the building blocks of our solar system.\u201d Astronomers believe that studying this unusual asteroid could help us to understand how planets develop, including planets like Earth.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cDeep within rocky, terrestrial planets, including Earth, scientists infer the presence of metallic cores, but these lie unreachably far below the planet\u2019s rocky mantles and crusts,\u201d NASA said. \u201cBecause we cannot see or measure Earth\u2019s core directly, the mission to Psyche offers a unique window into the violent history of collisions and accretion that created terrestrial planets.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>NASA has contracted SpaceX to carry out the launch for its upcoming Psyche mission to a strange metal asteroid in our solar system. The launch will use one of SpaceX\u2019s Falcon Heavy rockets, for a cost of $117 million. \u201cThe Psyche mission will journey to a unique metal-rich asteroid, also named Psyche, which orbits the [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":396,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36,12,1514],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-103098","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-asteroid-comet-impacts","category-existential-risks","category-space-travel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103098","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/396"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=103098"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103098\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=103098"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=103098"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=103098"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}