Scientists use James Webb Space Telescope A team of astronomers has identified a component of water on the mysterious, metal-rich asteroid Psyche. The findings suggest the water is present in the form of rust and could shed light on how the mysterious object formed.
asteroid 16 Psychology This asteroid is unusual for the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. The potato-shaped object is 173 miles (280 kilometers) across at its widest point and was once thought to be entirely metallic. Psyche’s extremely bright surface has led researchers to suggest that the asteroid may have been the iron-rich core of a young planet (a planetary building block) and could reveal how Earth and other terrestrial planets formed. The asteroid’s rare mineral components are estimated to be worth $100,000 quadrillion. – A real gold mine in space.
In fact, this hypothesis about the formation of rocks is what motivated NASA to conduct its ongoing research. Psychological missionLaunched in October 2023, it is expected to reach the asteroid in 2029 for in-depth study.
But not all that glitters is gold, or even metal. Over the past decade, new data on Psyche’s reflectance intensity and spectrum—the intensity of different wavelengths of sunlight reflected off the asteroid’s surface—suggest that it’s likely a mixed silicate-metal world.
Related to: NASA’s 5 Most Wanted Asteroids: The Most Dangerous Asteroids to Hit Earth
In 2017, Researchers have discovered interesting effects. Another component: water. Spectra from the infrared region, at long wavelengths that we perceive as heat but cannot see, showed the signature of hydroxyl units – the OH molecule, which is part of water.
These results suggest that the surface of Psyche may contain small amounts of water, either in the form of ice or hydrated minerals. However, the results were inconclusive, as the spectrum was collected using NASA’s Ground-based Infrared Telescope Facility in HawaiiWater in Earth’s atmosphere may have been spoiled. What’s more, the researchers found no more accurate marker for water than a slightly higher wavelength of infrared light. That marker has helped other astronomers “discover molecular water that is widespread on the Moon but has not yet been used on asteroids,” according to the study’s authors. Stephanie Jarmack“This is a very interesting finding,” a planetary scientist at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics told Live Science in an email.
To determine whether Psyche truly contains water, Jarmak and scientists from several American and German institutes turned to two of JWST’s infrared-sensing instruments: the Near-Infrared Spectrometer (NIRSpec) and the Mid-Infrared Spectrometer (MIRI), which can detect shorter and longer wavelengths of infrared light, respectively. Pointing these instruments at the asteroid in March 2023, the scientists collected snapshots of the spectrum reflected off Psyche’s north pole, which was facing the telescope at the time. Their results have been accepted by the Planetary Science Journal and are available online. Preprint via arXiv.
The NIRSpec data showed the hydroxyl signature, confirming its presence on the asteroid. Furthermore, Jarmak noted, the high-quality data allowed comparisons with hydroxyl signatures from other meteorites, revealing that Psyche’s hydroxyl signature resembles that of some carbon-rich meteorites that contain rust. This discovery led the researchers to conclude that hydroxyl is bound to minerals on Psyche, forming rust.
But the MIRI data lack a definitive signature of water. Still, researchers cannot rule out the presence of water, as it may be present in other parts of Psyche that JWST could not see. It is also possible that water is present but at concentrations below MIRI’s detection limit, making it less than half the concentration of water on the moonwhich is equivalent to a raindrop in 2.25 pounds (1 kg) of soil.
Aside from rust formation, the hydroxyl groups in Psyche provide clues about how the asteroid formed. If the hydroxyl formed inside the asteroid, it could indicate that Psyche was born in the asteroid’s cold outer reaches. Solar System This material has been swirling inward over millions of years. However, existing evidence suggests that the water-bearing asteroids that collided with and formed Psyche also brought hydroxyl with them.
Future plans include studying the exact location of hydrated minerals on Psyche’s surface, Jarmack said, adding that these plans include “observations of Psyche’s south pole, which contains a large crater that may have been the result of an encounter with a body of water.”
Metal-rich asteroids are lucrative sources of rare metals and the subject of future space mining projects. However, despite its estimated value, Psyche is not among them – it is three times farther from the sun than Earth, making it too far away for extraction efforts to be cost-effective.
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