Nasa spacecraft launched to mysterious and rare metal asteroid in first mission of its kind

Nasa's Psyche spacecraft rocketed away on Friday on a six-year journey to a rare metal-covered asteroid.

Most asteroids tend to be rocky or icy, and this is the first exploration of a metal world. Scientists believe it may be the battered remains of an early planet's core, and could shed light on the inaccessible centres of Earth and other rocky planets.

SpaceX launched the spacecraft into an overcast midmorning sky from Nasa's Kennedy Space Centre. Named for the asteroid it’s chasing, Psyche should reach the huge, potato-shaped object in 2029.

“It's so thrilling,” said Laurie Leshin, director of Nasa's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Added Arizona State University's Jim Bell, part of the Psyche team: “What a great ride so far.”

After decades of visiting faraway worlds of rock, ice and gas, Nasa is psyched to pursue one coated in metal. Of the nine or so metal-rich asteroids discovered so far, Psyche is the biggest, orbiting the sun in the outer portion of the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter alongside millions of other space rocks. It was discovered in 1852 and named after Greek mythology’s captivating goddess of the soul.

“It’s long been humans’ dream to go to the metal core of our Earth. I mean, ask Jules Verne,” lead scientist Lindy Elkins-Tanton of Arizona State University said ahead of the launch.

“The pressure is too high. The temperature is too high. The technology is impossible,” she said. “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.”

Astronomers know from radar and other observations that the asteroid is big — about 232 kilometres across at its widest and 280 kilometres long. They believe it’s brimming with iron, nickel and other metals, and quite possibly silicates, with a dull, predominantly gray surface likely covered with fine metal grains from cosmic impacts.

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Otherwise, it’s a speck of light in the night sky, full of mystery until the spacecraft reaches it after travelling more than 3.6 billion kilometres.

Scientists envision spiky metal craters, huge metal cliffs and metal-encrusted eroded lava flows greenish-yellow from sulfur — “almost certain to be completely wrong,” according to Elkins-Tanton. It's also possible that trace amounts of gold, silver, platinum or iridium — iron-loving elements — could be dissolved in the asteroid's iron and nickel, she said.

“There's a very good chance that it’s going to be outside of our imaginings, and that is my fondest hope," she said.

Believed to be a planetary building block from the solar system’s formation 4.5 billion years ago, the asteroid can help answer such fundamental questions as how did life arise on Earth and what makes our planet habitable, according to Elkins-Tanton.