There is an asteroid floating around in space called that is thought to be worth $700 quintillion. If NASA got this asteroid and split it up among the world’s people, each person would get about $93 billion.

Even though that is not at all what NASA has planned, they will still go to the asteroid, and it will happen much sooner than you might think. The asteroid was first found in 1852 by the Italian astronomer Annibale de Gasparis. NASA will now go to asteroid 16 Psyche to learn more about it. Due to the size of 16 Psyche and the fact that 95% of its properties are metals (iron and nickel), NASA won’t go to the asteroid for its crazy value, but rather to compare its composition to that of Earth.

Scientists think that because the composition of asteroids is very similar to that of Earth’s, we could learn something new about how our own core works or about how planets are made. Just from a financial standpoint, some companies have already been set up and are working on building the infrastructure for space mining. Companies like EuroSun Mining are interested in the space economy, which Morgan Stanley says is worth $350 billion today and will be worth $2.7 trillion by 2040.

Scott Moore, the CEO of EuroSun Mining has said “What we’re doing on the ground now may be impressive, but like everything else, even gold exploration in space is only a matter of infrastructure. We’ll get to it, eventually.” He continues and says “This may be the Holy Grail of space exploration for gold, but it won’t be the first stop on this adventure. It’s already happening from an investment perspective. And the Asteroid Belt is just one aspect of this market. The entire global space market is worth hundreds of billions already.”

16: Psych is currently 750 million kilometers from Earth. NASA plans to send their spacecraft Psyche in August 2022, and it will arrive at the asteroid in 2026 after Mars’ gravity gives it a boost in 2023.

700 quintillion divided by 7.5 billion = 93 billion for each person.

We have some facts about 16 Psyche:

• The asteroid is named after a mythological nymph who was the wife of Cupid
• It was discovered in 1852 by Italian astronomer Annibale de Gasparis
• If the asteroid’s proposed value was divided between every human on Earth, each person would receive $93 billion
• Its average diameter is 140 miles (226 kilometers), about the distance between Los Angeles and San Diego or nearly the length of Massachusetts
• Its surface area-246,300 square miles (641,800 square kilometers)-is just a bit smaller than that of Texas
• Radar studies suggest that 16 Psyche is shaped like a potato
• The asteroid is located about 3 times further than the Earth is from the Sun
• NASA’s Psyche mission was approved in 2017