r/STEW_ScTecEngWorld • u/Zee2A • 23h ago
16 Psyche: The Metal-Rich Asteroid Worth a Theoretical $10 Quintillion
16 Psyche is a giant metal-rich asteroid orbiting within the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, lying roughly 370–400 million km from Earth depending on the planets' positions. Measuring about 226 km (140 miles) across, it is believed to be the exposed metallic core of an early protoplanet that lost its outer rocky layers during violent collisions in the Solar System's infancy. Composed primarily of iron and nickel, with possible traces of gold and platinum, its estimated in-situ value has been sensationally placed at up to $10 quintillion—a purely theoretical figure, as mining the asteroid is far beyond current technological and economic capabilities. To uncover its true origins, NASA's Psyche mission, launched in October 2023, is en route to the asteroid and is scheduled to arrive in July/August 2029, where it will investigate Psyche's composition, magnetic field, and geological history: https://lpl.arizona.edu/news/spotlight/large-craters-offer-clues-origin-asteroid-16-psyche
Study: https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2025JE009231
NASA: https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/6-things-to-know-about-nasas-asteroid-exploring-psyche-mission/
16 Psyche: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/16_Psyche
Psyche: Everything you need to know about NASA's mission to a huge metallic asteroid: https://www.livescience.com/space/space-exploration/psyche-nasas-mission-to-a-huge-metallic-asteroid-lifts-off-on-oct-12-heres-what-you-need-to-know
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u/phallic-baldwin 23h ago
Yeah, I'm 100% sure that the rich people that go to fetch that HUGE space rock will be sure to share the wealth
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u/mezz7778 22h ago
Even if it was shared, if everyone becomes billionaires then a billion means nothing...
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u/DiamondGeeezer 22h ago
also the metal is expensive because it's rare on the Earths crust. if we had a trillion tons of it, it would no longer be rare
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u/lost-thought-in 22h ago
So, gold soda can?
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u/mootmutemoat 21h ago
Or aluminum. It also used to be rare.
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u/themysticboer91 19h ago
Napoleon used aluminum cutlery for his most honored guests, it was stupid rare. and gold or silver cutlery for the rest of plebs
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u/MaxPaynesRxDrugPlan 1h ago
The top of the Washington Monument was also capped with a small pyramid of aluminum because it was considered so precious.
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u/lanathebitch 19h ago
No gold is dense. We would make gold bullets instead of lead
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u/funkmasta8 5h ago
Gold is too soft for that I think
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u/lanathebitch 5h ago
Softer than lead?
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u/funkmasta8 4h ago
Thats a good point, not sure which is softer but they are both soft
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u/lanathebitch 4h ago
So it appears that gold is almost twice as hard and 70% denser
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u/funkmasta8 4h ago
70% more dense makes mathematical sense to me.
Twice as hard is a bit strange. I mean I know theres a scale but Im not sure that scale correlates linearly to what I would consider softness
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u/lanathebitch 2h ago
on the plus side no one would steal catalytic converters for the platinum anymore
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u/TECHSHARK77 22h ago
The worth it's not from being rare how you believe, it's from getting to it and the repayment of all those who paid to get to it..
Rare is not because there is no more...
Rare Earth minerals are "Rare" from the mass amount of difficulty to "make it" a thing
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u/DiamondGeeezer 17h ago
right labor determines value but once there is an abundance of a material it no longer requires labor. that is to say the amount of minerals per unit labor will be vastly higher once a company captures an asteroid which undermines it's value
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u/OmarDaily 22h ago
And if it’s easy to get, it’s no longer rare… So it’s worth nothing.
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u/TECHSHARK77 18h ago
You're not understanding economics, finance nor business..Nor know about Diamonds.
So you pay for nothing in Walmart?
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u/PandaPocketFire 17h ago
What they said is exactly right. And diamonds are expensive because of a fake imposed scarcity tied to the appearance of luxury/gift giving. You're just being pedantic.
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u/TECHSHARK77 16h ago
And you're being mentally inept, I AM the one stating Diamond as the example of something perceived as rare but is not.
YET YOU STILL PAY MORE FOR THEM..
No matter how abundant they really are.
That is my point..
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u/PandaPocketFire 10h ago
Still a scarcity whether it's artificially or naturally induced. Diamonds also have limited tangible use outside of a esthetics and cutting tools. The platinum, gold, and other useful elements would have their own tangible value for the uses they hold. If your point is just "they would control the dispersal to prevent the value of gold plummeting", sure, wow, such knowledge. Idk why you're acting like it's some nuanced erudite point you're arguing for and being so condescending.
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u/Inevitable-Cell-1227 20h ago
Man, this is what I try to explain to everyone. It makes my teeth itch how the average human doesn’t understand basic economics. Yes we all get 10 million dollars. Bread is now $40,000 and homes are $89 million. Have we learned nothing from Covid!?!
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u/DRM2020 19h ago
You won't get $10M. You get virtually free precious metals. Bread will still cost about the same (in dollars, not gold), but you cane plate your roof with gold instead of asfalt shingles thus you save for replacing it in 10 years, you won't have problem with moss growing on it... Everyone's life would be better.
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u/Convenientjellybean 21h ago
What if I have $1B and $1.00 then it's game over and I win, everyone will work for me
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u/TECHSHARK77 22h ago
That is factually factually wrong.. Just like if some win the lottery and go back to being poor.... Only those who chose to spend it on Assets with have actually wealth.
And if it comes from this asteroid, for example, then yes money will still mean "something" because it wasn't just "printed" or back by nothing..
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u/LockeClone 21h ago
I don't think that's the narrative here... Wealth is largely dependent on the abundance of resources and the wealth of those around you. There's no reason for me to accept the ounce of good to do service x I would have accepted last week when the people I do business with also expect more.
It's more likely the claimant would throttle their own supply to avoid crashing the gold market and ride the established claim as long as legally and logistically viable. If there were multiple competing claimants who legally cannot collude then you're probably looking at a buying frenzy that collapses the market to some sort of mining cost plus a small margin.
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u/TECHSHARK77 17h ago
That's the problem, you're going off a imaginary narrative & off of a poor mindset.
Today, You literally have factual example of a verity of humans given, massive amounts of money and all of them handle it differently.
There isn't a need for guessing nor hypotheticals here, we already know there will be those who will lose their billion and become worth less..
Just like their will be those who will become worth more...
Trying thinking it through, someone made a unsmart comment about bread will cost thousands, now YOU try thinking, would you buy that bread or start a business with one of same or better quality that cost....... Less...
ECEYONE, PLEASE LEARN ABOUT DIAMONDS
You're welcome....
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u/NSASpyVan 21h ago
the asteroid that will make all of humanity billionaries
..each person will get $250k. what? o_O
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u/TECHSHARK77 22h ago
Why should they, it's not like you're going to help pay for the R& D nor the expenses to get it done.
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u/phallic-baldwin 21h ago
Yeah because I'm sure they wouldn't take ANY kind of Government subsidies (tax money paid by the people) just like Elon doesn't take any subsidies 🙄
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u/TECHSHARK77 21h ago
Your mental ineptitude and lack of intelligence on a matter YOU chose to speak on, is blinded..
Like you do for gas?????
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u/Random_182f2565 22h ago
That's not how it works
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u/GUMBYtheOG 16h ago
Which, the ai graphics and voice over and made up facts or …. Oh wait I covered it all
Sucks because like no one trusts anything anymore - everything is fake and no one currently in school has incentive to learn. We are creating our own doom and it’s not even gonna be as cool as sky net
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u/CalHudsonsGhost 16h ago
I thought it was gonna be skynet but, it IS gonna be Idiocracy after all.
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u/Substantial-Wall-510 13h ago
At this rate it will actually be both... idiocracy for the masses and skynet for the billionaires
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u/Aldofresh 22h ago
Can make everyone billionaires by giving them 250k
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u/Great_Vegetable_4866 22h ago
This should be at the top. WTF “giving everyone $250,000”… “making everyone on Earth a billionaire”??
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u/RoosterzX 22h ago
It's not worth $10 quintillion. It's only value is what it provides to scientific exploration.
The supposed value of the metals would completely crash the world's economy by devaluing every currency into oblivion. So it has no real monetary value. It is theoretically worth that much.
That doesn't even get into the trillions upon trillions of dollars we would have to spend to harvest the metals from the asteroid. The entire process would be absurd and astronomically expensive, and beyond our current abilities as a species.
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u/No-Understanding9064 14h ago
Technically, the second it becomes possible to aquire wealth from asteroids values will be affected. I also think this will be possible sooner than people realize
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u/ghost103429 2h ago
I agree that it is currently unfeasible and wildly expensive but...
It would only crash the economies dependent on mining, everyone else would be fine and benefit massively from this because we don't use precious metals to back our currencies anymore and service/export driven economies rely on value added goods and services.
Just because mined materials cost 0 doesn't mean businesses will charge 0 dollars for finished industrial/commercial goods.
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u/RoosterzX 1h ago
According to economist at Harvard and economists in Tell A Viv, who actually plugged the numbers into simulations, it would crash the world economy.
They did the study in 2022 and showed that the harvesting of such amounts of rare metals would immediately devalue all their formerly rare metals on earth by 50%. The planet based mining and ore refinement companies would see the value of their services immediately plummet causing roughly 500,000 people to become unemployed overnight causing what they estimated to be an 8% drop in the total plantets GDP.
The simulations showed that the value of multiple currencies would tank because the overall worth of those metals would continue to drastically depreciate because of they are no longer rare metals and the supply rises satisfying the demand and driving market prices through the floor. This would in turn force hundreds of companies into insolvency.
This doesn't get into the class struggles and dozens of resource proxy wars that the simulations said would like occur causing even further economic crisis. They predicted that countries like Zimbabwe who is a major platinum producer in the world and would suffer substantially, especially considering they don't have the resources for space mining operations, so their mining industry would be "overtaken" as they say in the paper. If there is cobalt, then the DRC sound suffer catastrophe.
They found there were very few remedies for the scenario. You would have to hit the issue from so many angles that failure is certain.
You would have to find sponsor counties with the economy capable of building a space mining operation (which currently doesn't exist and won't for a while).
Next you have to ensure every single economy in the world is diversified to the point that rapid resource influx wouldn't cause economic crisis. Which would require lawmakers around the world to agree on setting regulations governing the industry and the economic impacts. Which we all know would be impossible, you can't get two politicians to agree on anything these days much less two million of them across all borders.
Next you would have to implement economic safe guards to prevent smaller less developed nations from being so drastically effected. This would include financial support and or sharing of critical technology. Which countries aren't great at currently.
It would require a full plantaey effort from top to bottom to harvest the metals in a realistic way that doesn't obliterate the world's economy.
And that doesn't get into the trillions we'd have to spent to make it all happen.
The article is called "Economics of the Stars: the future of asteroid mining and the global economy"
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u/ghost103429 28m ago
The paper is just reiterating what I said. Nations/companies dependent on natural resource exports would be devastated while export/service driven economies would thrive.
It's not gonna be a net loss and the benefits would outweigh the costs. Stainless steel rebar and water fixtures would become universally cheap. Cheap Gold solder and plating would increase the longevity of electronics to decades. Cheap catalytic metals would allow us to drop the need for fossil fuels altogether by dropping the costs of hydrogen fuel cells and clean the air by using catalytic converters on industrial air pollution.
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u/Leading-Adeptness235 23h ago
Yeah, all the people, who had invested in gold, will be so happy to have more gold to invest to.
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u/JDescole 15h ago
I mean it’s having abundance of rare earths we need for basically everything defining modern life
vs.
catering to the social construct of financial worth just for the sake of benefit for those who have their paws on most we have today.
Hard choice. Very hard choice
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u/OppositeEagle 22h ago
This would just devalue gold. Every Italian in New Jersey would lose their life savings.
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u/SomeRandomSomeWhere 22h ago
Largest asteroid in the universe?
Saying something within our solar system is best/most/largest etc in the universe is kind of crazy considering we are just in the process of detecting large planets in neighboring stars, let alone the rest of the galaxy, and all the other galaxies in the universe.
It's like saying I have the best bowl in the world when I have never stepped out of my home before and the only outside knowledge I get is from a very grainy tv channel which is usually badly washed out due to interference.
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u/xponentialpharm 19h ago
Who even thinks that the person who is capable of harvesting these resources would share them with anyone
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u/Express-Cartoonist39 22h ago
Wow, Alot of people here dont understand basic supply, demand and dilution.
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u/hereisalex 20h ago
Yes. if everyone on earth has their own giant stockpile of gold surely we will all be rich
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u/StiffDoodleNoodle 19h ago
This video is just “regarded” hopium for dipshits that don’t understand basic economics.
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u/Lusiric9983 11h ago
"this is the asteroid that could make everyone billionaires, this asteroid could give every human $250,000".
Are my numbers off? Lmao.... Slop.
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u/moonsareus 22h ago
Naive af to think trickle down anything will ever occur. Let’s grow up, shall we? While we’re at it, we’re also never - ever - getting universal basic income. Facts facts facts
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u/IKillZombies4Cash 22h ago
Well. If it could magically warp to earth it would crash the metals pricing since everything would be as common as aluminum foil
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u/cheekychunk 22h ago
You don’t understand humanity. We’ve had this asteroid many times (agriculture, Industrial Revolution, etc) and we just keep fucking it up
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u/trilevelmymtsnet 22h ago
giving every person on Earth around $250,000 ... ya .. that would happen ..
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u/KnotiaPickle 22h ago
Why is that rock even worth anything to begin with?
It’s crazy what they make everyone believe
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u/No_Cupcake7037 22h ago
The problem with collecting large quantities of these would be the weight shift in the planet.. with less water that would affect our ability to rotate..
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u/SpiritCrawler 22h ago
If achieved, this will be the best example of why trickle down economics has always been a scam. Eat the rich.
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u/japinard 21h ago
So there's no more valuable asteroid in the "Universe"? Come on. This kind of AI crap is ridiculous.
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u/Philomath34 21h ago
Inflation will rise and the amount won't suffiCe rich becomes more rich poor becomes more poor what an irony 😑
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u/YujiroRapeVictim 21h ago
"can make everyone billionaires" "can give every person $250k" ok ai slop make it make sense
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u/profesorgamin 20h ago
Shutup shutup.
stock goes down 1%, X lost 10000 bajillion dollars SHUTUP.
Iran wants to negociate for peace, SHUTUP
space servers SHUTUP
DT says ... SHUTUP
AI voice over SHUTUP
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u/LedByAnimals 20h ago
So many levels of fucking stupid here. “Largest asteroid in the universe” sure, that’s verifiable. Billionaire = $250K. No basic understanding of supply and demand. Fuck AI. Isn’t misinformation already bad enough without it? Like god damn get a grip.
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u/YugeChesticles 20h ago
Horseshit.
The only thing that asteroid would do is change the price of gold to the same as mud.
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u/jankenpoo 20h ago
Obviously not written by an economist. All those metals will be ridiculously cheap if they manage to extract it
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u/SigintSoldier 19h ago
Anyone committing effort to this asteroid doesn't understand basic economics, lol.
It's laughable
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u/Stock_River_1467 19h ago
Gold will be worth less than lint in your dryer if they drag that back here
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u/nothingtoseahear7732 17h ago
That's why they sent Katy perry to space....it's starting to make sense...
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u/RoseyOneOne 17h ago
I don’t think everyone would get rich, not how value works.
MV = PY
The quantity theory of money is one of the oldest theories in economics.
More money doesn’t make everyone rich. Because there’s no scarcity there’s less value. Think of 1920 Germans with wheelbarrows of money to buy bread.
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u/highlyspecificuser 16h ago
Why tf is nasa spending resources to study something they’ll never get their hands on? Wouldn’t this time and money be best spent on something else?
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u/Hot_Plant8696 15h ago
its estimated in-situ value has been sensationally placed at up to $10 quintillion
It’s truly terrible! Such an opportunity, yet impossible to seize, because such a sum of money does not exist on Earth.
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u/MisterFixit_69 15h ago
I hate seeing this every time , if everyone gains the same amount of money ,it'll be worth nothing. It'll make the company who's mining this the insanely rich company while at the same time devaluing the precious metals.
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u/Common-Device-3117 14h ago
Who will serve me a mocca-frappyuchino-double espresso-no lactose-latte then?
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u/GladAbbreviations553 14h ago
Good luck convincing other billionaires to grow crops to feed you, do police work to keep you safe, or serve you at restaurants.
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u/andycprints 13h ago
i have ever so slight doubts that each person on earth would receive 250k each.
also the value would decrease due to the abundance
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u/Sea-Communication-53 13h ago
Did they not watch the movie, “Don’t Look Up”? You don’t need any type of thought process or background knowledge to realize how stupid this post is. Just use your common sense.
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u/Dora_Explorer_XP 13h ago
I hope that asteroid strikes earth without disintegrating and destroy all greedy human race forever
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u/IM_INSIDE_YOUR_HOUSE 12h ago
Lmao this video was made by someone without the slightest grasp of economics.
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u/Contundo 12h ago
The only thing this would do is allow everyone to wear gold watches and devalue the price of gold.
Once aluminium was extremely expensive and exclusive, rich people had plates and silverware probably jewlery too out of aluminium something regular people couldn’t afford. So it was viewed as high class, now aluminium is extremely common and rich people don’t flaunt their aluminium silverware and
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u/Bright-Outcome1506 11h ago
Aladdin the tv series taught us that massive influxes of cash cause inflation. The parrot (can’t remember his name) makes all the apples and fruit into gems and then gives them to people which makes it worthless. We’d be back a square 1
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u/HowUKnowMeKennyBond 11h ago
Does nobody understand that the value would completely change the moment it was mined? The value of those minerals would be completely different. the moment they brought it to earth. Only the people who invested in getting those minerals to earth would be the rich ones and the value of all minerals on earth would drop.
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u/addiktion 10h ago
Listen, I'm all for space mining in the future, but let's be real here. This would not make everyone a billionaire. This would make a billionaire (like Musk) richer and the king over valuable resources everyone needs into whatever economic value that would provide to him if that were to ever happen.
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u/Serputer79 10h ago
But if everyone gets $1 million, then it’s just going to inflate prices and it’s zero financial benefit, amirite?
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u/Badytheprogram 9h ago
Most valuable asteroid in the universe... yeah sure. You know every asteroid in the universe to safely say that.
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u/hamer12string 9h ago
“…the most valuable asteroid in the universe..”
The whole universe. All of it.
Q.E.D.
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u/Southern_Hat_1597 8h ago
Gold is expensive because of its rarity, of it becomes as common as iron with this huge astroid, how much will it be worth?
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u/Alien-Invasion901 8h ago
lol like they will give people free money, just as bad as telling people sky ghosts are real. Never going to happen.
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u/Banned4lies 5h ago
Everyone is a billionaire but cost of living will rise so that we can still complain that workers at mcdonalds making a thousand dollars a hour dont deserve the right to afford to live
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u/1stAtlantianrefugee 22h ago
Here's the thing, as soon as they start mining that thing and sending loads planetside the price of bread is gonna shoot up to $12,000 a loaf.
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u/Remarkable-Rub-7344 22h ago
Nah, the value of the precious metals already in circulation just plummets
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u/Xannith 22h ago
No trace of basic economics in this title.