Look Up, There’s a $10,000 Quadrillion Asteroid Now Visible in The Texas Skies

Yeah, you heard me right. Let me write it out for you so you can see just how many zeroes we're working with. That's $10,000,000,000,000,000,000...

What, you may ask, constitutes an asteroid with a price tag having 19 zeroes? Well, it sure isn't because it looks pretty.

Asteroid 16 Psyche

Back in October of 2023, NASA launched the Psyche spacecraft in efforts to explore this enormous asteroid and identify the compositional makeup.

You see, this particular asteroid, named after the Greek goddess of the soul, is packed to the brim with precious metals and minerals like gold, iron and nickel.

NASA's spacecraft will travel a whopping 2.2 billion miles from Earth to their destination on the asteroid. One may think that's quite the road trip in a straight shot, but the path is actually quite different.

The spacecraft will travel in a spiral shape to utilize momentum of the Sun and other planets. In this graphic, the purple spiral depicts NASA's path.

NASA is expecting to reach the asteroid in 2029. So, 2.2 billion miles in 6 years? Not bad. Give me some pretzel Combos, a couple of Slim Jims and a Little River Band road trip playlist and I can probably do the same.

What Would the Economic Impact Look Like from Asteroid Psyche?

I'm sure we can all agree that $10,000 quadrillion is a lot of money, and as fun as that sounds to harvest, it would completely ruin the world economy.

As supply goes up, demand goes down. So, the price tag would quickly diminish on this asteroid, not to mention the fact that it would send normal grocery and daily prices we take for granted through the roof.

Also, think of the conflicts that would arise for who would claim the bounty on Earth? Either way, it's probably for the best that Psyche is essentially out of Earth's grasp.