Yellow asteroid - Psyche-16

Yellow asteroid - Psyche-16

Psyche-16, made of solid gold, is worth up to 700,000,000,000,000,000,000 USD, that is 700 trillion USD. This amount of gold is enough to 'give away' to every person on Earth nearly 1,000,000,000,000 USD - 1 trillion USD.

 

This gold mass flies in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, measuring only about 200km wide. While other planets contain only dust, gas and rocks, Psyche-16 contains precious metals including gold, silver and nickel. Because of this, Psyche-16 has the potential to become the driving force for a space mining race.

 

Does this giant block of gold really exist in the universe?

To answer this question, NASA said they are planning to prove its existence, a project that will launch in 2022.

Professor John Zarnecki, president of the Royal Astronomical Society, said it would take an estimated 25 years to get evidence to prove the meteorite exists.

 

When can we extract gold from that big meteorite?

Answering this trillion-dollar question requires the participation of many industries, such as space travel and rocket research, mining, etc.

Professor John Zarnecki believes it will take 50 years, after proving its existence, to start operating the gold mining chain on this meteorite. This will be a new explosion in the mineral mining industry.

For this project to succeed, two important factors are needed, one is the economic potential of any party involved and the advancement of space travel technology. It is not only the US and other economic powers that are also looking at this golden meteorite and hatching their own plans.

 

Psyche-16 may be the ultimate goal of current space travel, a temporary stop on the endless journey of discovery.

What is the current meteorite mining market like?

According to calculations by Allied Market Research (AMR), by 2025, the estimated market value of the asteroid mining industry will reach 3.8 billion USD. The benefits of going to space to search for precious metals are increasingly being noticed.

 

Psyche-16 is not the only one in our Solar System's asteroid belt that is rich in minerals. One meteorite is 200 meters long and is estimated to contain 30 billion USD worth of platinum.

Who will be the first to 'touch' the money floating in the air?

In this new mining race, China claims to have the upper hand, and they have reason to be bold in asserting that.

America is again focusing heavily on space exploration and scientific missions.

With ambitions to mine on the Moon, the European Space Agency ESA has partnered with ArianeGroup, the parent company of Arianespace, to carry out a lunar mission by 2025.

Since 2016, Luxembourg, a small country that is one of Europe's most powerful, has seen the emergence of 10 new space mining companies. Some are targeting asteroids orbiting Earth, others are eyeing the Moon.

iSpace, a private Japanese space company, also plans to launch a lunar satellite in 2020, and is expected to land on the surface in 2021. Japan also successfully landed a probe on the surface of an asteroid in September 2018.

Touching this gold block worth trillions of dollars 750 million kilometers from Earth is the ambition of many countries, the winner will hold the largest amount of gold in the Universe.