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Forbes said Sunday that Asteroid 2011 UW158, which contains a platinum core that’s reportedly worth $5 trillion, passed by Earth this weekend. It was only 1.5 million miles from the planet.
Forbes said Sunday that Asteroid 2011 UW158, which contains a platinum core that’s reportedly worth $5 trillion, passed by Earth this weekend. It was only 1.5 million miles from the planet.
The news was exciting for astronomers, but also for companies interested in space mining. One such company is Planetary Resources Inc., which is backed by big names including James Cameron and execs from Google Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOGL).
As quoted in the market news:
NASA is also interested in what sort of resources near-Earth asteroids may hold for future missions and is currently planning a so-called “asteroid redirect mission” that will involve using a robotic craft to snag an asteroid or part of an asteroid and then move it into orbit around the moon, where it can be visited in person by astronauts for research and other purposes. The space agency is already in the midst of imaging 2011 UW158 with space and ground-based telescopes as it passes by us and lists the rock on a list of potential human mission targets.
All these plans are rather far off at the moment, however. We’re still at least several years away from being able to send any prospecting equipment to a nearby asteroid, and the infant industry’s goals can change quickly. At the moment it’s thought that mining for water could initially be the way to go, as it will be a valuable resource needed for further space exploration and to actually build out the infrastructure for space mining to get off the ground (forgive the pun).