Confirm that the asteroid Psyche is more valuable than the entire economy of Earth

The diameter of the asteroid is about 200 km Spirit It is one of the most amazing regions of the solar system. The stellar body that is 370 million km away from our planet and orbits between it and it Mars and JupiterIt would be worth about $10 trillion, a figure that’s 300 times the global economy.

A new study on celestial bodies proves that it could be It consists only of iron and nickel. A team of scientists conducted an examination of the millimeter-wavelength emissions of an asteroid, which made it possible to develop the first map of body temperature and opened a new perspective on its surface properties.

The article was published in the scientific journal Planetary Science JournalAnd Confirm what has already been assumed about the asteroid: that Worth more than the entire economy on Earth.

At least 30% of Psyche’s surface is made of metal

Psychic revolve around Sol In the asteroid belt, a disk of Solar System Located between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter, it contains more than a million rocky bodies with sizes ranging from 10 meters to nearly 1,000 kilometers in diameter.

Psyche was discovered on March 17, 1852 by Hannibal Gasparis from observatory Capodimonte in Naples, Italy. Its name comes from the goddess of Greco-Roman mythology who personified the soul. At more than 200 kilometers in diameter, they are the largest of the M-type asteroids, which are thought to be rich in minerals and could be fragments of protoplanetary cores that disintegrated when the solar system formed.

The authors of the new study claimed that Psyche’s thermal inertia is high Compared to a typical asteroid and this fact indicates that a celestial body has an unusually dense or conductive surface because the amount of heat it radiates is no more than 60% of what would be expected from a typical surface with such heat emission.

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This situation means that At least 30% of Psyche’s surface is made of metal. In addition, the researchers found that the light emitted by the asteroid was scattered, indicating that the rocks on the surface are strewn with mineral grains.

“We’ve known for many years that the bodies of this class are not actually a solid metal, but what they are and how they were formed remains a mystery,” he said. Catherine de Claire, Assistant Professor Caltech Planetarium for Science and Astronomy He co-authored the study.

Based on this discovery, scientists will seek to apply the techniques described in the article to other large bodies in the asteroid belt, which provide a new perspective on the surface compositions of these celestial bodies.

According to researchers, the value of all the minerals that make up this asteroid exceeds the value of the world economy. Lindy Elkins Tanton, one of the principal investigators on the Psyche assignment for NASA, only calculates the iron orb It will be worth about $10 trillion. For comparison the specialized magazine in the world of finance, ForbesThe global economy was estimated at $142 trillion in 2019.

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