NASA has launched a mission to explore an asteroid that could make every human on Earth a billionaire.
NASA is going to explore asteroid 16 Psyche
The US space agency confirmed last year that it was planning to explore asteroid 16 Psyche - comprised of metals similar to those in the core of Earth, such as iron, nickel and gold.
Between 30 and 60 per cent of 16 Psyche's overall volume is thought to be made up of metal and has an estimated worth of £8,000 quadrillion.
This dwarfs the current global economy of approximately $74 trillion.
NASA's mission successfully launched last week and is aiming to survey the 140-mile-wide asteroid that orbits the Sun - in between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter.
The space agency does not plan to try and harvest the precious metals as NASA simply wants to learn more about planetary cores and how planets form.
They said: "Because we cannot see or measure Earth's core directly, Psyche offers a unique window into the violent history of collisions and accretion that created terrestrial planets."
However, NASA's spacecraft isn't expected to arrive at 16 Psyche until 2029.