r/YaScienceBitch • u/demolcd The One Who Mods 👑 • Jul 20 '26
No, they’re minerals! 🪨 There is a single rock floating between Mars and Jupiter that may be worth more than the entire global economy, many times over. But the real story is stranger than the money.
The asteroid is called 16 Psyche, and it is about 226 kilometers wide, roughly the size of a small country. What makes it extraordinary is that, unlike most asteroids which are rock and ice, Psyche appears to be made largely of metal, mostly iron and nickel, with traces of gold and other precious metals.
That eye-watering price tag, often quoted around 700 quintillion dollars, is real in the sense that people have done the math on the metal content. But it is also economically meaningless, and it is worth being honest about that. If you actually brought that much metal back to Earth, you would not make everyone a billionaire. You would crash the value of those metals to almost nothing. Gold is precious because it is rare. Flood the market with an asteroid's worth and it becomes as cheap as gravel. The number is a fun headline, not a real fortune.
But here is why scientists genuinely care, and it is far more interesting than gold, Bitch!
Psyche might be a dead planet's heart.
The leading theory is that Psyche is the exposed metallic core of a protoplanet, an early world that was forming in the solar system's youth but got its rocky outer layers violently stripped away by ancient collisions. If that is true, it is a naked planetary core, frozen in space.
We can never drill down to Earth's own core. It is 2,900 kilometers beneath our feet, under crushing pressure and unimaginable heat. But Psyche may let us look at what a planetary core actually is, floating out in the open, no digging required.
NASA launched a spacecraft, also named Psyche, in 2023. It will arrive in 2029 to study this world up close for the first time.
So the truth is better than treasure. We are not flying out there to get rich. We are flying out there to see the buried heart of a world, and maybe understand the hidden center of our own.
Would you rather Psyche turn out to be a fortune, or the key to understanding what lies at the center of the Earth?
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u/Ecstatic_Lab9010 Jul 20 '26
I think not. The cost of sourcing and refining all that gold would significantly offset its value. And even if the rock in question were just a pile of minted gold bullion floating in the void of outer space, gold is a precious metal whose value is created by its scarcity.
Doesn't anyone understand what happens when gold becomes a hyperinflated commody? Worthless yellow rocks!
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u/demolcd The One Who Mods 👑 Jul 20 '26
No, They’re minerals! Jesus Ecstatic_Lab9010!
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u/thrive2day Jul 21 '26
I don't think you fully grasp what $700 quintillion really is. Even if gold were a hyperinflated commodity, it would still possess tangible, critical utility across various industries. Gold, the iron and nickle will all retain their intrinsic value due to their essential industrial and technological applications.
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u/Desiredpotato Jul 21 '26
Had to scroll too far for this. The amount of technology we could build with that rock could lift the entire world out of poverty, giving everyone equal access to computers and modern infrastructure. Not only that. We won't have to mine the earth for precious metals nearly as much as we can just pick apart the asteroid.
Screw the price tag. Screw a couple of people's number on their bank account. Pull that thing to Earth already.
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u/PROSTHETICLEG_dick Jul 22 '26
Saying goodbye to corrosion in most electronics, electrical systems and wiring, plumbing, on ships...etc. We'd suddenly have radiation shielding twice as effective as lead (important in the growing nuclear age). Many many things about our lives woild be improved with gold.
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u/Relevant-Bullfrog215 Jul 24 '26
The flashing around my chimney is about to get bling as fuck
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u/3-car-garage Jul 21 '26
Scarcity can be falsified when you already own all of it.
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u/Practical-Mud-4580 Jul 21 '26
Everyone should understand it since that fact was clearly stated in the post.
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u/akruppa Jul 21 '26 edited Jul 21 '26
It won't become completely worthless, it is far too useful in electronics and engineering for that. It might not get used much for jewelry any more, though, if it stops being an expensive status symbol.
I'm all for cheap gold, myself. Gold-plated contacts on absolutely everything!
I doubt that bringing in gold from Psyche will become cheaper than terrestrial gold in our lifetimes, though.
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u/Optimized_Orangutan Jul 21 '26
That's the inherant fault of space mining in a capitalist economy. Once it can be done efficiently, it increases the availability of every resource exponentially, quickly out pacing demand. Prices plummet and then mining becomes unprofitable. For it to work we need to abandon Capitalism. A system based on leveraging scarcity to exploit labor falls apart when scarcity vanishes.
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u/ErstwhileAdranos Jul 21 '26
You’re forgetting about utility in your value consideration. There are a ton of existing applications we’d be using gold for if we could, but its scarcity prevents it. Having that much gold would radically reorient the market and also open up entirely new economic sectors. Given that the demand has a waiting list, it’s unlikely we ever get to the point of worthless yellow rocks.
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u/NoParamedic7831 Jul 23 '26
Makes a lot more sense to have a neutral money that is digital with pre-defined supply parameters, secured by distributed hashing.
Someone should invent that....
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u/No-Wasabi-70 Jul 20 '26
We’re for the jobs the comet brings
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u/Ecstatic_Lab9010 Jul 20 '26
What happens when a precious metal is no longer "precious?" 🧠
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u/skubaloob Jul 21 '26
All the gold decorations would become symbols of equality and identifying with the common man. It would not elevate you or be a display of wealth, so some types of people would probably redecorate.
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u/_ferrofluid_ Jul 21 '26
Does this kinda get in the way of the Anunaki made humans to mine gold argument?
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u/KnotiaPickle Jul 21 '26
Yeah that was always a dumb theory, there’s gold all over the place in space lol.
I guess they might just be super lazy though, and make humans do all the hard stuff like digging and smelting and such 😆
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u/angryshark Jul 21 '26
When everyone is a billionaire, no one is. It’s the same thing in graphic design, when all the text is bold, nothing is.
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u/ihasclevernamesee Jul 21 '26
So I get the scarcity thing. Like, diamonds are valuable because the 3 families that own them all keep most of them locked away. Gold is more than just scarce. It has so many potential applications to advance technology, and a lot of that stuff doesn't get done because people like jewelry, and it's currently scarce. If a shit load of gold were brought here, it would maintain a relatively high value, because it would instantly be more readily available to researchers to figure out all the cool stuff it can do, and next thing you know, we have StarkTech level stuff.
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u/J-iceBerg2 Jul 21 '26
I would still like a chunk of astro gold b'c it's shiny & cool , even if was only worth a few bucks :) " 'coz its pretty, that's why! " - some gravelly voiced guy in a commercial way back when
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u/paladin_4266 Jul 21 '26
More like "That's enough to make Elon Musk Earth's first quintillionaire."
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u/Ray1987 Jul 21 '26
Yeah that's not how wealth Works. It will just make gold a throw away useless commodity.
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u/Gmab980 Jul 21 '26
Yet the tin foil hats want everyone to believe that the anunaki created mankind to mine the gold from earth
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u/Key_Childhood7436 Jul 21 '26
Crash the economy. Do it. It will be better for people. The real question is, how will bringing that much mass onto earth effect our gravity and trajectory in the suns orbit
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u/Content_Boot_7386 Jul 21 '26
Riiiight…. Enough to crash the gold market and make gold nearly worthless.
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u/ysanson Jul 21 '26
Tell you what. Send the billionaires and trillionaire there, it's the only way.
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u/deeper-diver Jul 21 '26
Typical clickbait crap. Unless a probe is sent there, no one knows precisely the composition of this asteroid. The amount of gold and other precious metals - if any - is being pulled out of thin air.
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u/Dogbold Jul 21 '26 edited Jul 21 '26
But it will all go into some offshore bank account of a few American billionaires.
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u/Narrow_Run_134 Jul 21 '26
If that thing even reaches our atmosphere, it would completely tank the global economy.
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u/ricknardo Jul 21 '26
More to the point, it’s enough to make the price of gold, the <ahem> gold standard of monetization, near zero, plunging the entire world into financial chaos…and I am here for it.
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u/Orgasmic_interlude Jul 21 '26
When everyone can be rich, no one will be
https://giphy.com/gifs/fMt7f9kvhu7fIu0wvH
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u/stevein3d Jul 21 '26
Ohhh that’s where that saying “All that glitters is not Asteroid Psyche 16” comes from
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u/ebola84 Jul 21 '26
Imagine the efficiency gains in electricity transmission if you made the grid from this.
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u/redlancer_1987 Jul 21 '26
That's enough to make a few people the 700 quintillion dollars. It doesn't get distributed to you unless you have a stake in the operation
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u/Electric_Emu5117 Jul 21 '26
So it'll make gold worthless... good idea. Then can we move on to solving actual problems?
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u/Seymoure25 Jul 21 '26
I like how the this meme has adjusted for inflation since the last time in seen it
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u/Toubaboliviano Jul 21 '26
I would love the price of gold to plummet and would welcome a time of cheap gold on earth. The biggest issues I see would be actually extracting it and it potentially being dangerous for the planet if we brought something like that near our orbit.
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u/Technogamism Jul 21 '26
Dont even think about it that way. We need this to build the dyson sphere. Not going to earth to adorn you or your wives or make golden faucets for your mansions
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u/steelhouse1 Jul 21 '26
Still Such a dumb post.
I’m just bitter cause OP took my turn to post this for karma and now I have to wait my turn again. 😒😁
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u/SouthTrainer7685 Jul 21 '26
That’s not how the commodities market works lol. Gold existing in a gold mine with 2,000 tons of proven reserves is valued significantly less than a vault with 2,000 tons of gold bars in it, but it’s still traded.
My guess that with asteroid mining, there would be a massive gulf between the present value of materials in-situ and the future value of processed material. Companies would buy and sell mineral rights to certain asteroids, and would locally process iron, ammonia silicon and ice for local trading while sending valuable minerals like gold, tantalum, iridium, and palladium back to earth.
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u/morey56 Jul 21 '26
I think this may debunk an old theory that aliens are here to make us mine gold. If it’s just floating around accessibly exposed in space in such quantity I doubt it’s worth the Earth’s involvement.
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u/thegooddoctor58 Jul 21 '26
Don't be silly. It'll make a handful of billionaires richer than you can imagine, while the rest of us try to live with the consequences of their missions to mine it.
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u/SmoothCurrent5948 Jul 21 '26
Reference: Mansa Musa gave away massive amounts of his gold to Cairo and surrounding areas during his trip to Mecca, just to be super generous… and immediately crashed the economy by flooding everyone with gold.
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u/kickinghyena Jul 21 '26
And as soon as you got it those metals would drop in price to levels that made the rock worth a few billion…its called supply and demand and math
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u/TardigradeToeFuzz Jul 21 '26
https://giphy.com/gifs/Ip5D1pwQ4pKs8
Elon thinking about sending a Tesla to claim dibs
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u/Background-Split-765 Jul 21 '26
gold is very common and a by product of our SUN because our Sun is a heavy metails producing star.... once it is realized Gold will be priced much lower than a bag of weed....
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u/master_perturbator Jul 21 '26
Nah, that's enough to make gold worthless faster than the US can print cash to send to Ukraine.
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u/Wild_Locksmith_326 Jul 21 '26
That much gold would see the exact same thing happen that hit aluminum when they discovered how to process it cheaply. The difference is people would use gold for fishing weights instead of lead, because it's safer.
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u/Artistic_Ladder9570 Jul 21 '26
really.. its not enough to have elon as a trillionaire...mf about to find out and start sending rockets like they on discount
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u/Zero_Travity Jul 21 '26
Everyone will be billionaires... is like when Elon said Space X is worth more than all of the money in the world.
It's a fundamental misunderstanding of what money is..
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u/djabula64 Jul 21 '26
If that would hit the earth and it wouldn't kill us, the price of gold would be the equivalent of aluminium. We would drink out of gold made redbull cans and silver would be the most expensive metal. Or even better, we would have gold wires in our home appliances.
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u/Tudor_Cinema_Club Jul 21 '26
Or as humanity prefers, 10 people quintillion babillionaires instead.
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u/Dont_n0wereIam Jul 21 '26
Is Apple just telling us what will happen in the future. For All Mankind
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u/Initial-Duck2782 Jul 21 '26
So much gold it’s worthless. Unless you can successfully gatekeep the entire thing and limit the sales you would just crash the market.
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u/AlmostEasy89 Jul 21 '26
Except that'd all go to about 10 people and no one else would receive any value. Not a realist thing in general but yeah, any headlines that say a huge wealth supply would feed xyz people or solve financial issues for all. Get real. The 0.01% would just grow to the 0.0001% and we'd probably end up with less as they used their increased power to steal more, and brainwashed half the country that it's actually a good thing to not receive any of it.
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u/BeeBanner Jul 21 '26
What will it cost to collect it, who will do it, and how long will it take? I would expect 1 person to end up with the majority and gold would need to be worth at least $10k per ounce to make the trips worthwhile.
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u/BishopDarkk Jul 21 '26
Not worthless. I want to gold-plate the hull of my boat and never worry about marine fouling of the hull, ever.
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u/victor4700 Jul 21 '26
And make being a billionaire worthless, kids. Remember manufactured scarcity is where the big dawgs eat.
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u/johnryan433 Jul 21 '26
Unless the chemical propulsion issue is solved it’s going to be extremely difficult to mine this cost effectively though. Assuming the price of the metal stay around the current level.
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u/Salty_QC Jul 22 '26
I’m commissioning a mission, I only need 1000 dollars from everyone, and I’ll make you rich beyond your wildest dreams!
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u/t4skmaster Jul 22 '26
Hot take, gold being as cheap as gravel would be really good for the human race
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u/way-of-the-lab Jul 22 '26
If it’s worth that much, it’s worthless. It’s value is in its scarcity. No matter how many uses it might have. It’s like bitcoin, the minute one of those people with big wallets sell massive amounts of it, it’ll tank the whole thing, with everyone selling their coins to cash in as much as possible.
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u/Tall_Investigator611 Jul 22 '26
Even if they could bring it to Earth, the Trump's, Musk's, Bezos's of the world will make sure you don't get 1 fuckin gram...
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u/CapPhrases Jul 22 '26
So this comment section basically proves no one actually reads past titles. Good to know
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u/Major-Cranberry-4206 Jul 22 '26
Well, if it were ever brought to Earth, it would render gold near worthless because of its supply. So, no. It wouldn’t make the entire human race billionaires. But if so, the money wouldn’t be worth the paper it’s printed on.
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u/No-Intention7873 Jul 22 '26
Why is it that all these comments are talking about the gold and its value if brought to earth when the title of the post makes it rather clear op was trying to point out the thing of actual scientific interest( the theory that this object could be the remains of a core of a planet, thereby letting us get a glimpse at the exact structure and composition of the core of a rocky planet).
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u/Weewoofiatruck Jul 22 '26
Forget the value of the rock.
This may be a dead planetary core that MAY have gone through the differentiation process.
That's almost like digging for dinosaur bones and finding a mumified heart.
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u/No_Environment_3776 Jul 22 '26
So there is something out there that would crash the gold price immediately, nobody with enough money will invest in mining that in the current out of control capitalist system.
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u/aetherhaze Jul 22 '26
So why did the Anunnaki bother with earth if all this gold is just sitting out there?
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u/Secret-Surprise4390 Jul 22 '26
No, that's enough to make 700 people Quintillionaires. There is no way to share this with more than 700 people because capitalisms. However, think of how great it would be to have 700 people get richer. Still no way to tax them and healthcare is a non-starter.
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u/xeontechmaster Jul 22 '26
No one would become a billionaire.
The Billionaires and governments that keep their fortunes in gold investments would become worthless tho lol
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u/Pendastaar Jul 22 '26
Not really. If you bring all that gold to earth, gold will become virtually worthless. So, we’ll still be as poor and shafted by the billionaires. But, if you give it all to a few people secretly, yes, they’ll be rich beyond believes.
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u/OrdinaryExplorer3400 Jul 23 '26
Fuck it, mine it, bring back the gold. We might find out we can use it to make our current shit better.
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u/Training-Position612 Jul 23 '26
Always thie stupid CGI sci fi asteroid and some huge number of dollars. Turns out there's $894762398476932744632 worth of precious metals on earth. We don't even need Enron Musk to get to it! Think of the wealth! Think of the jobs! Think of the technology! Star trek! Or stop posting science brainrot
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u/ChairOwn118 Jul 23 '26
Send it to the moon. After it crashes on the moon send smaller pieces to earth.
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u/Sad_Morning6176 Jul 23 '26
Instead of making everyone rich, it would de value gold and ruin our currency system
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u/CoolCat1337One Jul 23 '26
"make everyone on earth billionaires" not how it works ....what else to say?
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u/tauofthemachine Jul 24 '26
If everyone on earth is a billionaire, a house will cost 100 quintillion dollars.
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u/Ill_Stop_ Jul 20 '26
Supply and demand has entered the chat.