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NASA has launched a mission to a rare asteroid covered in metal that is two billion miles (3.6bn km) and six years’ travel time away from Earth.
Scientists hope exploring the Psyche asteroid will help them understand more about how Earth formed and what makes it habitable.
Lead scientist Lindy Elkins-Tanton, of Arizona State University, said: “It’s long been humans’ dream to go to the metal core of our Earth. I mean, ask Jules Verne.
“The pressure is too high. The temperature is too high. The technology is impossible. But there’s one way in our solar system that we can look at a metal core and that is by going to this asteroid.”
Most asteroids tend to be rocky or icy, and this is the first look at a metal one – the team is also hoping to take the first-ever images of it.
Potato-shaped rock is 150 miles wide
Psyche, which may be the battered remains of a planetesimal, or a building block of a rocky planet, is the largest of the nine metal-rich asteroids discovered so far, NASA said.
The potato-shaped rock measures…
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