Consider us psyched. NASA will be sending a probe to a distant metal asteroid for the first time ever. The mission was selected from five finalists as part of NASA’s Discovery Program.
Scheduled to launch in 2023, the Arizona State University spacecraft will journey to 16 Psyche. This giant hunk of iron and nickel, locked in orbit about 280 million miles from the Sun, is thought to be the exposed metal core of a protoplanet. After reaching 16 Psyche in 2030, the probe will orbit the asteroid for 20 months, studying its properties with the aim of understanding more about how planets form. The team seeks to determine whether Psyche is in fact a protoplanetary core, how old it is, whether it formed in similar ways to Earth’s core, and what its surface looks like.
この記事は BBC Earth の June 2017 版に掲載されています。
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この記事は BBC Earth の June 2017 版に掲載されています。
7 日間の Magzter GOLD 無料トライアルを開始して、何千もの厳選されたプレミアム ストーリー、9,000 以上の雑誌や新聞にアクセスしてください。
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