The most detailed map of the ninth planet, located between Mars and Jupiter, has just been published in a study featured in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Planets.
This planet is Psyche, officially known as 16 Psyche, one of the most intriguing and controversial asteroids in the astronomical community. Psyche first gained attention when NASA announced that it could be a massive treasure trove of precious metals such as gold, silver, and platinum, with a value far exceeding that of the global economy.
“Ninth planet” Psyche – (Image: NASA)
Subsequently, Psyche shocked the scientific community again when a study from the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, published in Icarus, revealed that it is the remnant of a “failed” ninth planet in the Solar System.
In the new study, scientists utilized the ALMA telescope, located in the Atacama Desert of Chile, which consists of 66 high-precision antennas, to create a detailed map of Psyche – an important preparatory step for NASA’s upcoming space mission.
According to Science Alert, one of the most interesting areas the research team is focusing on is the Bravo-Golf region, a depression on the right side that has significantly lower thermal inertia than the surrounding highland areas, which are very bright. Three scenarios have been proposed.
First, Bravo-Golf could be the “gold mine” – a rich metallic area that scientists are anticipating, covered by a layer of fine, porous soil.
“Pits containing fine-grained material have been observed on smaller asteroids, with low enough mass to shake the surface and cause fine materials to settle. But Psyche is a large object, so the accumulation of fine-grained materials at the bottom of this depression is intriguing and somewhat mysterious,” said lead author Saverio Cambioni from the Department of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).
Second, the surface material here is more porous than that of the highland areas and contains remnants of past collisions. Third, this region may be rich in silicates.
Regardless of the hypothesis, the data indicates that Psyche’s composition is very rich, and NASA’s assumption that it is metal-rich is entirely plausible, even if it may not contain as much gold as expected. Simultaneously, it suggests that this asteroid has evolved from impacts, further reinforcing the hypothesis of it being a ninth planet.
