Five things to know about NASA's mission to a metal world

tech.hindustantimes.com:

For the first time ever, a NASA probe is journeying to an object composed not of rock, ice, or gas, but metal: the asteroid Psyche.

By studying this space oddity, scientists hope to learn more about the inner cores of rocky planets such as our own -- or, potentially catalog a previously unknown class of cosmic body.

Here are some fun facts about the mission, which launched on Friday.

If Psyche were mineable, its iron, nickel and gold deposits could be worth an eye-watering $10,000 quadrillion (that's $10,000,000,000,000,000,000), according to an estimate reported by Forbes magazine.

But Lindy Elkins-Tanton, the mission's principal investigator who was responsible for that calculation, said it's nothing more than a "fun intellectual exercise with no truth to it."

"We have zero technology as a species to bring Psyche back to Earth," she said in a recent briefing. Even if the endeavor were successful, it would flood the metals market, reducing their value to zero, she said.

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The Psyche probe has blasted off on a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket, but to complete its 2.2 billion-mile (3.6 billion-kilometer) journey, it will turn to a far more efficient form of propulsion.

Psyche's solar arrays convert light into electricity, providing the power for its four solar electric or "Hall-effect" thrusters. These use electromagnetic fields to accelerate and expel ions (charged atoms) of xenon, the same inert gas used in car headlights and plasma TVs.

While the resulting blue glow is evocative of Star Trek, it's no warp drive: the actual force it exerts in a given moment is roughly equal to the weight of an AA battery in the palm of your hand.

But in the void of space, the probe will accelerate continuously to