Mysterious Cosmic Fortune: The $10 Quintillion Asteroid That Could Turn Every Earthling into a Billionaire

Every now and then, I find myself contemplating the zaniness of the cosmos. I mean, if you thought the universe was just a bunch of stars, space rocks and black holes—you’re in for a mind-boggling twist with the story of ’16 Psyche’, an asteroid so rich, it could turn us all into Yessah-tabulously rich space billionaires! You read that right, space fans, we’re talking about an asteroid with enough iron, nickel, and gold to make every single person on Earth feel like they’ve hit the SoCal lotto.

Now, let me paint a picture here: Imagine a rock, except it’s not just any old rock. It’s like hitting that one in a gazillion jackpot when your geologist friend, who’s really into this kinda stuff, drops the bomb that this colossal space traveler has a value that’s—could you believe me if I told you?—set around $10,000 quadrillion! That’s $10,000,000,000,000,000 if you like your numbers spelled out – which, let’s face it, who doesn’t? Just to give you some scale, that’s enough to make every person, down to the last soul, a billionaire, twice-over, even!

I was giggling to myself as I learned about the “funsies” of space exploration. Linda Elkins-Tanton, who’s working on the ’16 Psyche’ mission, had this to say about the whole scenario – which, by the way, sounds like something out of a Space Sci-fi comedy – “the estimate is meaningless in every way,” because, well, we can’t exactly haul the asteroid back to Earth. And why would we even want to? Turns out, flooding the market with that much metal would, frankly put, render it as useful as a screen door on a submarine.

So, here’s where I started to giggle even more: This massive behemoth, thought to be mostly iron and nickel, might have a sneeze of gold, platinum, and a couple other fancy metals—all the stuff that turns our heads faster than a latte on sale. Size-wise, we’re talking about a rock that could squash Manhattan flat and still have room to entertain screaming tourists!

And what’s NASA’s strategy after they took off from Florida like they headed to space’s version of Disneyland? Sending an orbiting mission to

The mind-melting value of the ’16 Psyche’ asteroid has been explained by its official estimator Linda Elkins-Tanton.

NASA has a specific interest in this celestial entity and announced back in 2023 that it was preparing to launch an orbiting spacecraft to hopefully harvest its precious materials, which include nickel, gold and iron.

Elkins-Tanton, who works at Arizona State University as foundation professor in the School of Earth and Space Exploration, and is the ’16 Psyche’ mission’s principal investigator, developed her $10,000 quadrillion (£8,000 quadrillion) price on the rock eight years ago – one that could make every single person on Earth a billionaire.

“The critical thing, of course, is that the estimate is meaningless in every way,” she claimed. “First, we have absolutely no available technology for bringing Psyche back to Earth.

A model of the 16 Psyche asteroid (CHANDAN KHANNA/AFP via Getty Images)

“And even if we did, the abundance of its metal would immediately render metals valueless on the markets. But, nonetheless, it was a fun exercise!”

Weighing in on the makeup of the asteroid itself, she continued: “We assume the metal in Psyche is iron and nickel, since that is the composition of all the metal meteorites that have fallen to Earth, and that is what we think the Earth’s core is made of.”

Elkins-Tanton also provided a chart illustrating how iron accounts for 94% of the mass of the average metallic meteorite, which typically contains 5% nickel and tiny amounts of iridium, gallium, tungsten, cobalt, gold, copper, platinum and rhenium.

She did, however, go on to stress that scientists can’t categorically confirm what 16 Psyche consists of just yet.

“We will find out what it really is when we get there,” she noted.

Yet theoretically, judging by years of meteor landings on our planet, this absolute behemoth of a space traveller – measuring 173 miles (280 km) across and 144 miles (232 km) long – will command the highest price ever recorded for one.

nasa 16 psyche

This comes after Nicola Fox of NASA’s science mission directorate said: “Psyche is by far the largest [asteroid], and that’s why we want to go to it. Because the smaller ones are more likely to have been changed by things impacting them, whereas the big one, we think, is going to be completely unchanged.”

As for when its orbiting mission should wrap up, allowing NASA to carry immensely valuable bits of Psyche down to Earth, that’s apparently scheduled for November 2031.

It first launched from Florida’s Kennedy Space Center in October 2023.