NASA launched a mission on Friday October 13 to the distant asteroid Psyche, a world made of metal that has never been studied before, which scientists believe could be the core of an ancient celestial body.
Liftoff of SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy rocket, carrying the NASA probe, took place as planned at 10:19 a.m. (4:19 p.m. French time) from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. “The vehicle is on a nominal trajectory,” said a commentator during NASA’s live video, a few minutes after takeoff.
Humanity has already visited worlds made of rocks, ice or gas. But “this will be the first time that we are going to visit a world that has a metallic surface,” Lindy Elkins-Tanton, the mission’s chief scientist, said at a press conference.
“The only way to see a core.”
The journey to get there will be long: Psyche is located in the outer part of the asteroid belt, between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. The NASA probe will travel some 3.5 billion kilometers to reach it, with an arrival date planned for summer 2029.
Thanks to the light reflected from its surface, scientists know that Psyche is very dense, and that it is made of metal, as well as some other material – perhaps rock. But “we don’t know what Psyche looks like,” the researcher explained. “I often joke that it’s shaped like a potato, because potatoes come in lots of different shapes, so I’m not wrong,” she laughed.
Scientists believe that Psyche, which measures more than 200 km in diameter, could be the core of an ancient celestial body, whose surface was torn away by asteroid impacts.
Earth, Mars, Venus or Mercury have a metallic core. But “we’re never going to see these cores, it’s way too hot, way too deep,” said Lindy Elkins-Tanton. The mission to Psyche is therefore “our only way to see a core.”
