SPACE MINING UNCOVERED

Asteroids rich in rare elements could be harvested for their valuable contents, but the real worth may be in using them as interplanetary fuel stations

- WORDS ALEX DALE

If the idea of mining asteroids for gold and platinum sounds a bit far-fetched, then consider this: every last scrap of these materials we mine here on Earth originally arrived on our planet via asteroid impacts. These precious metals were present during Earth's formation, but were pulled deep within our planet's core, where they remain today, forever inaccessible. It was a bombardment of space rocks that delivered to Earth the gold and platinum near the planet's surface. If we want more of these, and other valuable resources, we can either wait for another asteroid to strike, or we can get proactive, head into space and mine them from small asteroids that stray into Earth's gravitational pull.