Brenna Cooper
Have you ever heard of the asteroid that's more expensive than the net worth of Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, and Donald Trump combined?
This may sound like an urban legend, the plot of a crazy space-western movie or even something Han Solo would be looking for in a Star Wars film, but it's actually a very true story.
That's right, it's time to start building your best attempt at a spaceship as there's a major interstellar gold rush waiting to happen.
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The prize? An asteroid worth 10 quintillion US dollars, which is enough to make everyone currently alive a billionaire.
Named 16 Psyche, this floating gold mine was discovered all the way back in 1852 by Italian astronomer Annibale de Gasparis and named after an ancient Greek goddess.
It's believed that 16 Psyche is filled with metals such as iron, nickel, gold, which is why it has such an extremely high monetary valuation.
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As we said before, the asteroid has an estimated value of 10 quintillion US dollars. Which is still a crazy amount of money if you convert it into British pounds, Euros or Japanese Yen.
There's only one small problem, NASA states that 16 Psyche is 'about three times farther away from the Sun than is Earth' and sits in orbit between Mars and Jupiter.
To put that in perspective, the farthest astronauts have successfully made it to is the moon. Which means we've still got quite a way to go before mankind masters deep space travel.
This isn't to say that NASA don't have aspirations to reach 16 Psyche, with the US space administration announcing in October 2023 that it had launched an unmanned spacecraft with the goal of reaching 16 Psyche.
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Confirming the news in statement, NASA said: "Teams of engineers and technicians are working almost around the clock to ensure the orbiter is ready to journey 2.5 billion miles to a metal-rich asteroid that may tell us more about planetary cores and how planets form."
NASA expects the spacecraft to pass nearby Mars in 2026, before using the planet’s gravity as a slingshot to increase velocity and propel it towards the asteroid.
All being well, it is then expected that the spacecraft will enter 16 Psyche's gravity field by July 2029. At this point the craft will begin orbiting the asteroid until November 2031.
It's estimated that it will cost NASA around $1.2 billion (£930 million) to develop, launch, and operate the Psyche mission.
The bad news is that NASA currently has no plans to mine the asteroid, with the currently journey to 16 Psyche being purely to conduct scientific research.
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That's not to say that opportunities to mine the asteroid won't be available in the future, however a source of wealth which is worth more than the entire economy of the planet would certainly raise ethical debates regarding how the resource would be used.
Perhaps until that point, it's better that 16 Psyche remains in space.