NASA has recently approved a 2022 mission to visit Psyche 16, a Massachusetts-sized asteroid chock full of previous metals, which orbits the sun between Mars and Jupiter.
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Mission to rare metal asteroid could spark space mining boom
But experts caution that even if Psyche holds lots of precious metal and it can be brought back to Earth — a feat that would require technology and infrastructure that don’t yet exist — the monetary value could be much lower. “Psyche is a huge asteroid, and if it’s all highly concentrated metal, then yes, that’s an exorbitant amount,” Abbud-Madrid said. “But obviously if you bring back such a large amount, the market value will go down.”
