NASA launched a truly unique mission this week. The Psyche spacecraft took to the skies atop a SpaceX Falcon Heavy, beginning a six-year cruise to the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter.

Unlike the rocky or icy worlds we usually visit, its target - the asteroid 16 Psyche - is believed to be made almost entirely of exposed iron and nickel.

Scientists suspect it might be the stripped, naked core of an early protoplanet that had its rocky mantle blasted away by violent collisions billions of years ago. It is the closest we will ever get to directly studying a planetary core, and I cannot wait to see what a metal world looks like up close.

https://science.nasa.gov/mission/psyche/