00:00Out in the solar system there's still a class of cosmic objects we've never
00:07closely examined. Metallic asteroids. They're orbiting the Sun out there in
00:11the vacuum of space. But now NASA scientists say they could also tell us a
00:15whole lot about our own home. We're pretty sure we have a good idea of
00:18what's going on inside the earth. That is a solid iron-nickel core with a
00:22surrounding molten layer made out of the same material. But without observing it or
00:25something extremely similar to it, with our own scientific lens, we can't be sure.
00:29That's where NASA's Psyche mission comes in, where the Space Administration is
00:33planning to send a spacecraft to land on the Psyche asteroid. Psyche is the
00:37largest metallic asteroid we know of, which Jim Bell, who is working with NASA
00:41on the project, says is around the width of Massachusetts. Asteroids of this size
00:45are scientifically important because they are often remnants of our early
00:48solar system's development, when the planets were formed. And experts believe
00:52that Psyche may have at one point been the core of a planet. NASA's mission,
00:55which is hoping to figure that out, is set to take off in October and will
00:59travel an immense 2.5 billion miles before arriving at the asteroid in
01:03August 2029. It will study Psyche for 26 months, hoping to glean not only its
01:08composition and origin, but also figure out if it was once a planetary core,
01:12perhaps also telling us something about what's going on under our own feet.
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