It's a world like no other: a metal-rich asteroid that could be the remnants of a small planet, or perhaps an entirely new type of celestial body unknown to science.

A NASA probe is set to blast off Friday bound for Psyche, an object 2.2 billion miles (3.5 billion kilometers) away that could offer clues about the interior of planets like Earth.

"We've visited either in person or robotically worlds made of rock, worlds made of ice and worlds made of gas.

At the very center of the Earth is a core of metal—so hot and so deep down as to be unreachable and impossible to study directly. But we might learn more about it and the cores of other Earth-like planets by studying the asteroid Psyche. Based on observations made through telescopes, it is believed to consist of 60% metal, probably an iron and nickel alloy. Looking a bit like a potato and measuring about 150x250 km, Psyche may be the innermost core of a planet that, following a violent collision with another object, was stripped of its outer crust.

NASA is scheduled to send a mission to Psyche on Oct. 13. It will be NASA's fourteenth Discovery Program mission. Preparations started in 2017 with launch planned for 2022, but due to the corona pandemic, NASA was unable to complete the necessary testing in time.

It may be possible to create paved roads and landing pads on the moon by using lasers to melt lunar soil into a more solid, layered substance, reports a proof-of-concept study in Scientific Reports. Although these experiments were carried out on Earth using a substitute for lunar dust, these findings demonstrate the viability of the technique and suggest it could be replicated on the moon. However, further work may be needed to refine the process, according to the authors.

Moon dust poses a significant challenge to lunar rovers as, due to the low levels of gravity, it tends to float around when disturbed and can damage equipment. Therefore, the infrastructure such as roads and landing pads will be essential to mitigate dust issues and facilitate transport on the moon.