A NASA probe launched into space Friday on a 2.2-billion-mile journey to a huge, metal-rich space rock in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter.
The Psyche spacecraft lifted off atop one of SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy rockets at 10:19 a.m. ET from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The probe will now spend years traveling into deep space en route to an asteroid also named Psyche, which may have once been part of the core of a “planetesimal,” a type of small celestial body that is a crucial building block of rocky planets in our solar system.
The mission is the first to study a metal-rich space rock up close. Scientists are keen to investigate the asteroid Psyche because it could help them answer some of the enduring mysteries about how the solar system came to be.
When the spacecraft arrives at the asteroid in 2029, its onboard instruments will examine its chemical makeup, study its mineral composition and scour for evidence of an ancient magnetic field.
“Brace yourself for the mind-blowing revelations it will bring about planetary formation and the birth of rocky planets like our beloved Earth,” NASA Administrator Bill Nelson wrote on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter.
Using Earth-based radar and optical telescopes, scientists think the asteroid Psyche was part of the core of a rocky celestial body that never formed into a planet. The asteroid, which is about as wide as Massachusetts, may have smashed into other objects early in its formation, causing it to lose its outer rocky shell, according to NASA.
Agency officials have said that the Psyche mission could give researchers a unique opportunity to learn more about the chaotic and violent origins of the solar system, including how planets like Earth were created.
This week, NASA also unveiled newly retrieved samples from a 4.5-billion-year-old asteroid that contain intriguing traces of carbon and water, findings that could yield insights into how the solar system formed and how life started on Earth.