An asteroid that's the size of Massachusetts? Not quite.

There's an asteroid out there, and it's a big one. 

Located between Mars and Jupiter, Asteroid 16 Psyche is one of the most massive objects in the asteroid belt in our solar system, and with a diameter of about 140 miles, it is roughly the same length as Massachusetts (if you exclude Cape Cod). (Source: CNN)

First off, thanks for the ear worm, because for the remains of the day, my brain is going to be ping-ponging around:

Bend and stretch, reach for the stars.
There goes Jupiter; here comes Mars. 

Romper, bomper, stomper boo, Miss Jean!

And 'hey' to CNN: Get a new unit of measurement.

Sure, in another five or six thousand years, give or take, the sea will reclaim The Cape. The Heritage Museum in Sandwich, along with Gary Cooper's 1930 Duesenberg, will be immersed. So will Dennis' Sesuit Harbor Cafe and its lobster rolls. (At least we'll no longer be battling for parking spaces with the guys repairing boats at the marina.) 

Arnold's Mini Gold in Eastham. The Beachcomber in Wellfleet. The Pilgrim Monument in P'town. 

The Cape will be one big Atlantis. What a drag! Glad I won't live to see it. But in the meantime, give us the length we're due. Saying that we're 140 miles long without the Cape is like saying someone is 5'7" without their head.

So what's the big deal with Asteroid 16 Psyche? 

It's big. It's metal. It's rare. And it "could yield secrets about Earth's molten core." (Oooh, ahhh.) And it's worth a boat-load of money.

The exact composition of Psyche is still unclear, but scientists think it's possible the asteroid is mostly made of iron and nickel. It's been hypothesized that a piece of iron of its size could be worth about $10,000 quadrillion, more than the entire economy on our planet.

$10,000 quadrillion? WHAT. DOES. THAT. EVEN. MEAN?

In 2022, NASA plans on sending an unmanned spacecraft to get up close and personal with it, and get a better handle on its makeup. I guess that means that the value could be $10,000 quadrillion plus or minus. Maybe there's gold in that there asteroid. (Plus!) Or maybe it's made up of My Pillow stuffing. (Minus! Bit minus!)

Studying Psyche could help us better understand those early times in the history of our solar system, when objects would have had "higher inclinations and crazier eccentricities," and would have had more opportunities to collide with each other, [planetary scientist at the Southwest Research Institute Tracy] Becker told CNN.

Ah, that crazy coot, eccentric old solar system! 

I'm not all that enthralled with space exploration, but it's not a bad idea to figure out what's out there. (Am I the only one who wants Biden to nip Space Force in the bud? Between NASA and the Air Force, I think we've got things covered.)

Anyway, whatty up with that estimate of Psyche's value?

Well, turns out it's not exactly a for-real estimate.

Lindy Elkins-Tanton, a planetary scientist at Arizona State is the one who came up with it. But we're really not going to hack Asteroid 16 Psyche to bits and sell the pieces on the commodities market.

While the conversation on mining asteroids for resources is developing here on Earth, Psyche is not the target we should strive for, according to Elkins-Tanton.

"We cannot bring Psyche back to Earth. We have absolutely no technology to do that," Elkins-Tanton said.

Even if it was possible to bring back metals from Psyche without destroying the Earth, that would quite possibly collapse the markets, Elkins-Tanton said.

"There are all kinds of problems with this, but it's still fun to think about what a piece of metal the size of Massachusetts would be worth."

There it is again. That dead-wrong "size of Massachusetts" thing. We may be little, but we're bigger than that.