If humans were ever able to get their hands on just one asteroid, it could be a game-changer.
That’s because the value of many asteroids are measured in the quintillions of dollars, which makes the market for Earth’s annual production of raw metals – about $660 billion per year – look paltry in comparison.
The reality is that the Earth’s crust is saddled with uneconomic materials, while certain types of asteroids are almost pure metal. X-type asteroids, for example, are thought to be the remnants of large asteroids that were pulverized in collisions in which their dense, metallic cores got separated from the mantle.
There is one such X-type asteroid near earth that is believed to hold more platinum than ever mined in human history.
The exciting part of asteroid mining is the asteroid belt itself, which lies between Mars and Jupiter. It is there that over 1 million asteroids exist, including about 200 that are over 60 miles (100 km) in diameter.
NASA estimates this belt to hold $700 quintillion of bounty. That’s about $100 billion for each person on Earth.
Source: http://www.visualcapitalist.com/theres-big-money-made-asteroid-mining/
