“Psyche”
Asteroid 16 Psyche, often sensationally dubbed the 10,000 quadrillion dollar asteroid due to its composition of valuable metals, may not be entirely what it seems.
The researchers based their work on previous observational data that showed the asteroid was mainly a mix of three ingredients: metal, low-iron pyroxene, and carbonaceous chondrite. In the laboratory, they then tried to recreate the visible and near-infrared spectra seen by the telescopic observations, using various mixtures of the three ingredients.
This allowed them to determine with a higher degree of accuracy the percentages of each ingredient that make up 16 Psyche’s surface.
The result was 82.5% metal (previously estimated at a staggering 94%), 7% low-iron pyroxene, and 10.5% carbonaceous chondrite.
They were also able to determine that the asteroid’s density must be quite low, with a porosity around 35%.
