Crumb
c/everythingscience · by Mujumat@lemmy.world · 2y

This asteroid, worth an estimated $15,600 quadrillion, is the target of a new NASA mission

https://www.abc.net.au/news/science/2023-10-08/nasa-psyche-explainer-asteroid-journey/102885864

65 points · 17 comments · view on lemmy.world

17 Comments

query@lemmy.world · 35 pts · 2y (4 replies)

We also have the word quintillion, for a thousand quadrillion.

OneWomanCreamTeam@sh.itjust.works · 13 pts · 2y

More commas is more exciting. Really, they missed the chance for a nice chunky $15,600,000,000,000,000,000

GuybrushThreepwo0d@programming.dev · 7 pts · 2y (1 reply)

I think this is the realm where we should start using scientific notation

Moneo@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 2y

A hwhat now?

Ryan213@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 2y

I prefer a billion billions.

wholeofthemoon@lemmy.world · 21 pts · 2y (2 replies)

What even is supply and demand

Questy@lemmy.world · 6 pts · 2y

It's how we make sure we retain poverty as a concept. Obviously valuation of an asteroid is currently pointless, but the idea of eliminating scarcity is more of a political issue than a resource one.

Akasazh@feddit.nl · 5 pts · 2y

Yeah really. Look at how the Spanish took so much gold from south America that their economy tanked.

It's impossible to assess the worth of a commodity in terms of its scarcity without the extraplanitary cache added in.

Like the price of very rare baseball card would come down a bit if a couple of thousand of that card where discovered.

schnapsman@lemmy.world · 18 pts · 2y (3 replies)

So let's consider a situation where scarce materials are suddenly no longer scarce but for some reason the price hasn't changed. Multiply that through producing a figure orders of magnitude greater than the economy of earth for the sake of.. catchy headline. The science and wonder of 16 Psyche isn't enough on its own-- let's relate it to money so the plebes gobble it up.

FigMcLargeHuge@sh.itjust.works · 4 pts · 2y (2 replies)

That's journalism these days. Like the article about Saturn's Rings disappearing. Small print at the end, in 100 Million Years. But hey that doesn't generate clicks.

LastYearsPumpkin@feddit.ch · 3 pts · 2y (1 reply)

Yeah, I miss the good old days when articles didn't have attention grabbing headlines enticing you to read the article, instead just had flat paragraphs of text with nothing but facts.

Wait, no. This is how news has been written since the dawn of the printing press...

schnapsman@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 2y

Surely there's an optimal middle ground between saying something is worth 15 quintillion money and spewing data in monotone.

A_A@lemmy.world · 7 pts · 2y (1 reply)

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/16_Psyche is a large M-type asteroid (...) named after the Greek goddess Psyche. The prefix "16" signifies that it was the sixteenth minor planet in order of discovery. It is the largest and most massive of the M-type asteroids, and one of the dozen most massive asteroids. It has a mean diameter of approximately 220 kilometres (...) ...Historically, it was hypothesized to be the exposed core of a protoplanet, but numerous recent studies have all but ruled that out. Psyche will be explored by a spacecraft of the same name, marking the first time a manmade object will journey to a metallic asteroid. Launch is planned for no earlier than 12 October 2023, with an expected arrival in 2029.

OneWomanCreamTeam@sh.itjust.works · 9 pts · 2y

Psyche will be explored by a spacecraft of the same name, marking the first time a manmade object will journey to a metallic asteroid. Launch is planned for no earlier than 12 October 2023,

This alone is so much more exciting than that dumb headline.

BrudderAaron@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 2y (1 reply)

Can I get me a piece of that asteroid?

Willy@sh.itjust.works · 1 pts · 2y

if a bunch of government nerds can get there, I'm sure you can figure out a way!

spittingimage@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 2y

Every article I've read about an asteroid compares its shape to a potato. So I guess it's a blob, with maybe more blobs attached. Because potato isn't a specific shape, it's a specific lack of features.