Psyche is the mission to the asteroid 16 Psyche – a piece of space rock that is supposedly worth $100k quadrillion. Or, depending which media report you read today, it might be a billion quadrillion dollars, or even a trillion quadrillion dollars. At this point these numbers don’t even mean anything. The media just keep adding zeroes every time the story is reprinted to make it, what, more exciting? Click-bait gets us every time.
Thankfully, actual scientists have tried working out the value of asteroids like 16 Psyche and… it’s complicated. There are two groups, categorised by the makeup of their metals. Some asteroids contain really expensive, rare metals like platinum. But others are mostly iron, or aluminium, or other metals that you wouldn’t bother bringing all the way back to earth. Now, if we were to use these more common metals to construct things in space, then the expense of mining the asteroids in the first place might be worthwhile. Otherwise, not so much.
And guess what – pure metal asteroids are probably unicorns anyway. But that's unlikely to dampen enthusiasm for the mission to the quadrillion quadrillion dollar asteroid.
