NASA has expressed significant interest in the ’16 Psyche’ asteroid, with plans to launch a spacecraft to explore and potentially extract its precious resources, including nickel, gold, and iron. Linda Elkins-Tanton, the mission’s principal investigator and a foundation professor at Arizona State University, was behind the staggering £8,000 quadrillion estimate of the asteroid’s value, made eight years ago. This figure suggests that, theoretically, the asteroid’s materials could make every person on Earth a billionaire.
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However, Elkins-Tanton was quick to emphasise that the estimate is not practical. “The critical thing, of course, is that the estimate is meaningless in every way,” she stated. “We have no available technology to bring Psyche back to Earth. Even if we did, the abundance of metals would devalue them on the market.” She acknowledged that the calculation was more of a fun exercise than a realistic financial projection.
Regarding the composition of the asteroid, Elkins-Tanton noted that scientists assume it primarily consists of iron and nickel, given that this is the typical makeup of metal meteorites that have fallen to Earth, as well as the assumed composition of the Earth’s core. A chart she provided indicated that iron constitutes 94% of the mass of the average metallic meteorite, with smaller amounts of nickel and other metals like gold and platinum. Despite these assumptions, she stressed that scientists cannot yet confirm the exact makeup of 16 Psyche until they arrive.
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The asteroid, which measures a colossal 280 km across, is considered to be largely unchanged by cosmic impacts, unlike smaller asteroids that have been altered over time. NASA’s Nicola Fox highlighted this as the key reason for the mission: “Psyche is by far the largest [asteroid], and that’s why we want to go to it.” The mission is expected to conclude in November 2031, with the spacecraft launched from Kennedy Space Centre in October 2023, bringing humanity closer to potentially unlocking the asteroid’s immense value.
