AaS! 156: What are Asteroids Good For?

Ask a Spaceman!

Paul M. Sutter

Astrophysics, Science, Cosmos, Holes, Black, Astronomy, Natural Sciences, Universe, Cosmology, Space, Physics

4.8 • 853 Ratings

🗓️ 20 July 2021

⏱️ 39 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

What are the different kinds of asteroids? What are they made of? How can we send missions to capture them, and what will we do once we get one? I discuss these questions and more in today’s Ask a Spaceman!

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Thanks to Cathy Rinella for editing.

Hosted by Paul M. Sutter, astrophysicist and the one and only Agent to the Stars (http://www.pmsutter.com).

Transcript

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0:00.0	16 Psyche is an asteroid.
0:14.0	It was discovered in 1852 by the Italian astronomer Anabale de Gaspari.
0:20.4	It was the 16th asteroid to be discovered, hence the name.
0:24.5	It's relatively large, about 120 miles across, and alone accounts for about 1% of the total mass of the
0:32.2	asteroid belt. Psyche orbits the sun at about 3AU and takes around 5 years to complete an orbit.
0:40.3	16 Psyche is pretty lumpy. If you went out in the woods and picked up a generic rock and scaled it up to be 120 miles across, you'd have a pretty good picture of what this asteroid looks like.
0:52.3	16th Psyche is unlike most asteroids.
0:54.8	It's highly reflective as an albedo of around 30%,
0:58.7	which makes it around three times brighter or more reflective than the moon.
1:03.7	The surface, and presumably the rest of it,
1:06.0	because we actually haven't gone inside of it,
1:07.9	but based on what we know of the surface and its mass and its density,
1:11.6	it's composed of 90% metals, mostly iron and nickel.
1:17.8	How did 16 Psyche come to be?
1:19.6	Well, we think that in the early days of the solar system, like before there was even a solar
1:25.8	system, there was just a bunch of rocks flying
1:28.2	around, slowly gluing themselves together. Some of them grew up to go on and become planets
1:35.1	like Earth and Jupiter, and others, well, didn't. Either they never got to be a part of a planet
1:42.6	in the first place, or they were starting to form a plan.
1:47.1	They were making a proto-planet or planetesimal, and they were just getting on it and something smashed into it and broke it apart.
1:54.6	When planets form and they're all hot and molten, the heavy stuff sinks to the core and the lighter stuff floats to the surface.
2:02.0	That's why, like the Earth, we have iron in our core and nitrogen in our atmosphere.
	...

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