3 ms·

Most of the asteroid is iron with some nickle even though most the articles talk up the gold and platinum. I would think steel would also be great in establishi

Most of the asteroid is iron with some nickle even though most the articles talk up the gold and platinum. I would think steel would also be great in establishing habitats in space and it would be nice to have a source without the launch costs of getting it out of earth orbit.

adrian_b 3y ago
While the average content of gold and platinum-group elements in an iron asteroid is many thousands of times higher than their average content in the crust of the Earth, that does not mean that these metals are easy to mine. Unlike on Earth, where various processes have concentrated the precious metal into some deposits where they are much more abundant than on average, e.g. in alluvial deposits in river beds or in magmatic sulfide deposits, on such an asteroid the precious metals are dissolved in iron and spread uniformly through all the asteroid. Therefore even if the total amount of precious metals is very great, a huge quantity of energy is required for its extraction. For instance, in order to produce one kilogram of gold more than four hundred tons of iron will have to be processed (e.g. by first producing hundreds of tons of some acid used to dissolve the iron and the other non-precious metals). So it is very unlikely that we will see any such mining operation soon. There are other metals much easier to mine in such a place, e.g. iron, nickel, cobalt, germanium, chromium, gallium, manganese (but which are not worthwhile to be brought back to Earth).
- venusenvy47 3y ago
  Aside from the mining difficulties, I think the transportation costs of bringing large quantities of metal back to Earth would be expensive. Even if there were pallets of gold bars stacked neatly on the surface of the asteroid, it would be expensive to bring large payloads back on spaceships.

3 ms·

Most of the asteroid is iron with some nickle even though most the articles talk up the gold and platinum. I would think steel would also be great in establishi

by BashiBazouk 3y ago

adrian_b 3y ago
While the average content of gold and platinum-group elements in an iron asteroid is many thousands of times higher than their average content in the crust of the Earth, that does not mean that these metals are easy to mine. Unlike on Earth, where various processes have concentrated the precious metal into some deposits where they are much more abundant than on average, e.g. in alluvial deposits in river beds or in magmatic sulfide deposits, on such an asteroid the precious metals are dissolved in iron and spread uniformly through all the asteroid. Therefore even if the total amount of precious metals is very great, a huge quantity of energy is required for its extraction. For instance, in order to produce one kilogram of gold more than four hundred tons of iron will have to be processed (e.g. by first producing hundreds of tons of some acid used to dissolve the iron and the other non-precious metals). So it is very unlikely that we will see any such mining operation soon. There are other metals much easier to mine in such a place, e.g. iron, nickel, cobalt, germanium, chromium, gallium, manganese (but which are not worthwhile to be brought back to Earth).
- venusenvy47 3y ago
  Aside from the mining difficulties, I think the transportation costs of bringing large quantities of metal back to Earth would be expensive. Even if there were pallets of gold bars stacked neatly on the surface of the asteroid, it would be expensive to bring large payloads back on spaceships.