In early 2023, a group of scientists found an asteroid that has a huge value of $100,000 quadrillion.
A few years ago, NASA sent a spacecraft to the asteroid Psyche 16, which is about six years away from us. Why is this asteroid worthy of such attention? It turns out that its value is estimated at 100,000 quadrillion dollars. This meaning is impressive both in the literal and figurative sense of the word “space”. For comparison, the total amount of money in the world, including investments and cryptocurrencies, is about 1.3 quadrillion dollars. Thus, the value of the asteroid Psyche 16 exceeds this amount by about a hundred times – it is a real treasure. It can be called a “gold mine” because it contains extremely valuable rare elements such as platinum and palladium.
Several companies are already considering the possibility of developing mines on the asteroid. But is it realistic to get these space riches?
From a technical point of view, this is possible, according to Philip Metzger, a planetary scientist at the University of Central Florida. The process of mining on an asteroid is practically no different from that on Earth, except for the need to use special equipment that can operate in the low gravity and high radiation conditions on Psyche 16. However, such equipment must be completely autonomous, as radio waves can take more than 20 minutes to reach an asteroid.
According to Metzger, all the necessary technologies for this have already been developed and tested, but they still need to be improved for use in space. Currently, the equipment for resource extraction in space developed by NASA is estimated at about 5 points out of 9 on the scale of technological readiness. However, there is still plenty of time: the spacecraft will not reach Psyche 16 until 2029.
Kevin Cannon, a geologist at the Colorado School of Mines, said that the development of asteroid deposits is likely to be financed by private companies.
Of course, it will take years to make a profit of 100,000 quadrillion dollars. But all the technologies for mining resources on asteroids are already available. Now it all depends on whether there is sufficient investment and whether the companies will retain their desire to implement this project.
