NASA announced that it is about to launch the agency’s first spacecraft designed to explore the first metal asteroid in October of this year, and it is called “Psycho” after the name of the asteroid.
The space mission was originally expected to launch in 2022, but while testing it, engineers discovered technical issues with the craft’s engines, and there wasn’t enough time to launch it last year after fixing the problem.
“The results are satisfactory, the project passes nearly all of the major program testing that was previously a major challenge, all goes well and the team is on the right track,” said Lori Leschin, director of the agency’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, in a statement.
The spacecraft will embark on a 280-million-mile (450-million-kilometre) journey, arriving at the mineral-rich asteroid in August 2029 and orbiting it for 26 months in an effort to explore it.
Some scientists believe that the asteroid “Psych” may be an exposed nucleus of a small planet, a planet in the process of formation, or perhaps a part of primordial matter in the universe.
The asteroid appears in a hazy way on ground and space telescopes, so this mission will provide us with a clearer picture of the metallic body.
And if the asteroid “Psych” is really the nucleus of another planet, then studying it will be tantamount to gazing into the depths of a planet like Earth, which will reveal more secrets to astronomers about our vast universe.
(Ashley Strickland – CNN).
2023-06-06 12:36:36
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