{"id":132871,"date":"2021-12-22T11:23:27","date_gmt":"2021-12-22T19:23:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2021\/12\/heres-how-nasas-psyche-will-unlock-the-secrets-of-a-tiny-alien-world"},"modified":"2021-12-22T11:23:27","modified_gmt":"2021-12-22T19:23:27","slug":"heres-how-nasas-psyche-will-unlock-the-secrets-of-a-tiny-alien-world","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2021\/12\/heres-how-nasas-psyche-will-unlock-the-secrets-of-a-tiny-alien-world","title":{"rendered":"Here\u2019s How NASA\u2019s Psyche Will Unlock the Secrets of a Tiny Alien World"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<p><iframe style=\"display: block; margin: 0 auto; width: 100%; aspect-ratio: 4\/3; object-fit: contain;\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/6q8tMw3EQLI?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope;\n   picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>And kick off a new cosmic economy.<\/p>\n<p>NASA\u2019s probe knows where it\u2019s going, but it has no idea what it\u2019s going to find.<\/p>\n<p>That\u2019s the crux of the challenge for Psyche, a spacecraft slated to blast off in 2022. Its target? An asteroid of the same name. Called \u201c16 Psyche,\u201d it\u2019s one of the 1.1 million to 1.9 million large asteroids we know are in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. But information about 16 Psyche is scant. Scientists know it\u2019s shaped like a potato, and the light that reflects off its surface suggests the asteroid is \u201cunusually rich in metal,\u201d according to a recent press release from NASA\u2019s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.<\/p>\n<p>That makes it an attractive scientific target because it could be a relic of our solar system\u2019s earliest days. The uncertainty is a huge challenge for the mission. Without much information about its density, mass, or spin, the mission team is depending on data from Psyche to plan its encounter with the asteroid.<\/p>\n<p>That data won\u2019t just offer a glimpse into the early Solar System \u2014 it could also set the stage for asteroid mining.<\/p>\n<p>Full Story:<\/p>\n<div class=\"more-link-wrapper\"> <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2021\/12\/heres-how-nasas-psyche-will-unlock-the-secrets-of-a-tiny-alien-world\">Continue reading \u201cHere\u2019s How NASA\u2019s Psyche Will Unlock the Secrets of a Tiny Alien World\u201d | &gt;<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>And kick off a new cosmic economy. NASA\u2019s probe knows where it\u2019s going, but it has no idea what it\u2019s going to find. That\u2019s the crux of the challenge for Psyche, a spacecraft slated to blast off in 2022. Its target? An asteroid of the same name. Called \u201c16 Psyche,\u201d it\u2019s one of the 1.1 [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":578,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-132871","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economics","category-space"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/132871","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\/578"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=132871"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/132871\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=132871"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=132871"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=132871"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}