LIVE VIDEO: Watch the launch of NASA’s Psychic asteroid mission

Is the asteroid Psyche mostly a hunk of metal? Is this object, about the width of Massachusetts, the core of a small planet whose rocky outer layers were shattered during a cataclysmic collision in the early days of the solar system?

For now, all astronomers can say is maybe and maybe not.

NASA is launching a spacecraft, also called Psyche, on a journey to the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter to find out.

When is it launching and how can I watch it?

After an earlier postponement this week due to bad weather, the launch is currently scheduled for Friday at 10:19 a.m. ET from Kennedy Space Center. The spacecraft flies on Falcon Heavy, SpaceX’s largest orbital rocket, which is needed to provide the power needed to fly the massive Psyche spacecraft. The launch will be broadcast live on NASA TV and on The agency’s YouTube channelStarting at 9:30 a.m. or you can watch it via the video player embedded above.

There is an instantaneous launch opportunity every day, which means that the rocket must launch at a certain moment. As for Friday’s weather forecast, there are currently odds of takeoff on time By 85 percent Favorable, significant improvement of Thursday report He warned that heavy clouds might halt the mission. Less than an hour before the scheduled launch time, mission managers began the process of loading the rocket with propellant.

There are also launch opportunities in the coming days. The $1 billion Psyche mission must launch by October 25, before the solar system’s celestial alignment becomes too far out of line for the spacecraft to reach the asteroid.

What is the soul?

The asteroid, called Psyche, was spotted in 1852 by Italian astronomer Annibale de Gasparis, and named after the Greek goddess of the soul. This was the sixteenth asteroid to be discovered.

Observations beginning in the 1960s using telescopes, and later radar, indicated that Psyche differed from other asteroids in the region between Jupiter and Mars.

Scientists also found that it is likely denser than rock.

“Some of those early estimates were like, ‘Wow, this is really unusual,'” said Jim Bell, a professor of Earth and space exploration at Arizona State University who will lead studies of the asteroid using a camera on board the spacecraft.

Psyche appeared to be almost pure metal, giving rise to the idea that it might be the remains of a young planet’s core. Or this hypothesis may be completely wrong.

“Psyche may be something completely different than that,” said Lindy Elkins-Tanton, a professor of Earth and space exploration at Arizona State University who serves as the mission’s principal investigator. “I like to be completely surprised.”

More recent measurements have led to lower estimates of the asteroid’s density, suggesting that it is made of metal plus something else, perhaps a rock, and perhaps empty space.

“My best guess is that more than half of it is metal, based on the data we have,” Dr. Elkins Tanton said.

What happens after launch?

The Psyche spacecraft will swing by Mars in May 2026, using its gravity as a slingshot toward the asteroid Psyche, arriving in August 2029 after traveling 2.2 billion miles.

The spacecraft will spend at least 26 months in orbit around the asteroid studying the object using a variety of instruments.