Giant craters may reveal if Psyche is a lost planetary core

When we think of asteroids, we almost immediately think of giant rocks bouncing around like the iconic chase scene in “The Empire Strikes Back,” and we often hear how they are remnants from the birth of the solar system. While the asteroids that comprise the Main Asteroid Belt of our solar system are not only spread far apart from one another, they are also not all made of rock. One asteroid approximately the size of the state of Massachusetts called 16 Psyche is made of metal, which planetary scientists hypothesize could be the remnants of a protoplanet’s core that didn’t build into a full-fledged planet. But how did such a unique asteroid form?