NASANASA are planning a mission to an asteroid that contains enough precious metals to make everyone on Earth very, very rich.
According to The Daily Star the 200km-wide asteroid, which has been named named Psyche, is made up of iron, gold and nickel and is estimated to be worth $10,000 quadrillion.
Pixabay It’s currently whizzing round space caught in orbit between Mars and Jupiter but were we to bring it to Earth and distribute the asteroids vast wealth everyone on Earth would be looking at a $1.4 billion pay cheque
Unfortunately were that to happen it would collapse the world’s economy, currently valued at $73.7 trillion, by devaluing the dollar. So although you’d be a billionaire you’d probably struggle to buy a loaf of bread.
FlickrThe lead scientist on the NASA mission,Lindy Elkins-Tanton, said:
Even if we could grab a big metal piece and drag it back here … what would you do?
Could you kind of sit on it and hide it and control the global resource — kind of like diamonds are controlled corporately — and protect your market?
What if you decided you were going to bring it back and you were just going to solve the metal resource problems of humankind for all time?
Pixabay Right now it’s impossible to bring Psyche to Earth but NASA still think there’s value in observing its movements as it flies through the cosmos.
Maybe they could just bring a bit of it back and lend me enough to pay off my overdraft?
More of a concept than a journalist, Tom Percival was forged in the bowels of Salford University from which he emerged grasping a Masters in journalism.
Since then his rise has been described by himself as ‘meteoric’ rising to the esteemed rank of Social Editor at UNILAD as well as working at the BBC, Manchester Evening News, and ITV.
He credits his success to three core techniques, name repetition, personality mirroring, and never breaking off a handshake.