Why NASA’s Newest Mission Is More Mysterious Than Most

Private companies and government-backed agencies around the world have prompted huge advancements in space exploration in recent years. Nevertheless, the current focus on moon missions might seem like a rerun of the ‘60s space race.

If you’re looking for something altogether unusual and unpredictable, you might want to follow the progress of a NASA spacecraft that blasted off from Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Friday.

Searching for Psyche

The name of this latest mission — Psyche — is also the name of the asteroid it was sent to explore. Although not much is known about the distant rock, experts hope it will be able to shed some light on a variety of galactic mysteries, most notably regarding how planets like Earth were originally formed.

Psyche (the spacecraft) weighs in at about three tons and Psyche (the asteroid) is believed to be about the size of Massachusetts. Here’s a brief overview of the mission:

• The craft will travel 2.2 billion miles to reach the asteroid.
• It is expected to arrive around August 2029.
• The rendezvous is set to last well over two years.

In order to gain enough momentum to enter the asteroid belt, Psyche will swing around Mars sometime in 2026 and continue its six-year journey to its namesake rock.

A deep-space mystery

This distant asteroid appears to be nothing more than a fuzzy dot using the telescopes currently available. But scientists believe it contains a significant deposit of metals like iron and nickel.

One question they hope the current mission will answer is whether the rock is actually as old as they think — maybe dating back 4.5 billion years — and can provide clues about what the early universe was like.

Chris Agee October 14th, 2023

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