Posted on 07/17/2015 1:58:36 PM PDT by Red Badger
An asteroid worth a potential £3.5 trillion ($5.4 trillion) is due to pass by Earth on Sunday, and you can watch it live from 11pm UK time (6.30pm ET).
Asteroid 2011 UW-158's fly-by will be streamed live on the internet from an observatory in the Canary Islands.
The space rock has attracted the attention of asteroid mining company Planetary Resources, because it is thought to have a 100 million ton core of platinum that the company might one day want to exploit.
Asteroid 2011 UW-158 will pass within 1.5 million miles (2.4 million km) from Earth on Sunday - 30 times closer than our nearest planet.
It is less than half a mile (1km) across, but is thought to be immensely valuable because of its platinum core.
An organisation call Slooh, that links telescopes to the internet for public viewing, will be providing the images live from their website, along with a discussion about the asteroid and its possible value to space prospectors. 'It's always fun when an asteroid whooshes past our world so the Slooh telescopes will be watching live when asteroid 2011 UW-158 passes 30 times closer to us than the nearest planet, on July 19.’ Slooh Astronomer Bob Berman said.
'What makes this unusual is the large amount of platinum believed to be lurking in the body of this space visitor.
‘Can it be mined someday, perhaps not too far in the future?'
Planetary Resources considers asteroids like 2011 UW-158 as ‘X-type’ asteroids.
X-type asteroids are composed primarily of metal, and appear to be the remnants of large asteroids that fully separated into core and mantle.
Many of these were destroyed in huge collisions in the solar system’s early history, leaving just their tough metallic cores.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
Wouldn’t the change in mass of our planet by bringing in metals from space cause unintended consequences?
“I was thinking the same thing. Platinum is valuable because it is rare. introduce a couple thousand tons and the price goes down, Introduce 100 million tons and it will be 10 cents a pound.”
Well, it’s rare AND incredibly useful. Things that would be completely impractical to make today with $1000/oz platinum would be very practical at $100/lb.
Or hop onto it with mining equipment and come back with the ore next time the asteroid makes a close approach to Earth.
Sure, strap a rocket motor to it and direct it to land right in the middle of....where?
No problem.
5.56mm
I want a Platinum DeLorean.
Copernicus Crater, Luna.....................
Yes, we’d change our mass, but our mass changes every day.........................
How much to mine it? How much effect on supply would that cause? what effect on likely price as a consequence of the increased supply?
Intelligent questions that make the headline look ridiculous.
We could make catalytic convertors in China and Mexico.
Oh? what..!? Never mind.
Yes, but if a single company were to acquire it, they could control the market - a la DeBeers.
Supply goes up. Price goes down. Assuming no change in demand, or even a falling off of demand....................
I think Mark Cuban (?) was trying to put something together to try to capture it
Supply and demand says the value won’t be what they think it is.
Wish Cuban would fire DeAndre Jordan into the heart of the Asteroid.
Catch it catch it catch it catch it catch it...
Having that puppy would make platinum very cheap.
But I wonder if platinum is all the good stuff it has.
Thanks for the link, so small scale would be fine but large scale space mining bringing back millions of tons a year could pose a problem.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.