Asteroid Filled With Gold And Most Expensive Things in Space

when you think of asteroids if ever you do just don't picture Rocky celestial bodies flying somewhere between the planets asteroids are much more curious and unique did you know they can contain huge amounts of valuable elements or that some asteroids can be unimaginably expensive it's true asteroids come in a variety of shapes and sizes one of the largest is beste its diameter is bigger than the length of the Grand Canyon the smallest asteroid ever observed is smaller than a car but what are asteroids scientists call them minor planets because they're too small to be real planets and can't be classified as comets asteroids orbit the Sun in the asteroid belt that lies between Mars and Jupiter scientists believe that asteroids formed as a result of collisions in the past billions of years ago ancient planets crashed together the planets burst into pieces larger fragments became asteroids smaller ones are called meteoroids some come too close to our planet's orbit and even fall on earth most meteorites don't make it to our surface though they burn up in the atmosphere but the largest known intact meteorite is named koba koba fell to earth in prehistoric times but was only discovered a century ago in Namibia this iron meteorite weighs as much as 10 elephants because of its large mass towboat remains in the exact place where it fell this car-sized meteorite is the largest piece of iron of natural origin on the planet and though it seems big it's nothing compared to the asteroids in space when it comes to meteors though jewelry could literally fall from the sky if you want to know how well some meteors are made of diamonds gold nickel and platinum but sorry to disappoint you you won't find a gold meteor right here on earth because when it enters the Earth's atmosphere it heats up to such incredible high temperatures that precious metals mouth and evaporate maybe fallen meteorites won't make you rich but what about the ones in space a few years ago a small asteroid zoom past our planet it's so small it doesn't have a name just a number 2011 uw 158 it flew very close to Earth and gave scientists an opportunity to observe it hey you know the old saying you can observe a lot just by watching they found a lot of platinum and other valuable elements possibly up to five trillion dollars worth of metals 2011 uw 158 could have made you rich but too bad it's gone are there other asteroids that could make us rich yes this one is a real out-of-this-world treasure 16 psyche called the golden asteroid psyche is one of the biggest asteroids in the belt the amount of iron on psyche is so high that it could satisfy people's needs for thousands of years the asteroid also may contain platinum iron nickel the total value of all metals in psychie is about 10,000 quadrillion dollars that number is 10,000 followed by 15 zeros count them all this money would be enough to make all people on earth billionaires the US Space Agency is getting ready to launch a spacecraft to explore the golden asteroid the flight will last around five years and the stay on Saiki will take 21 months scientists intend to investigate the asteroid to learn more about Earth why because psyches composition is similar to the core of our planet together with its size this leads to the theory that 16 psyche could be the remnant of the core of a planet very similar to earth scientists have special hopes for metal asteroids since they could be mined and used to build spaceships in space colonies asteroids move through space yes but with a certain trajectory their path is set by gravity s roids usually rotate but not quite like the earth does their rotation isn't so smooth because the asteroids aren't spiracle because we can map their path we might be able to mine them but asteroid mining could lead to the collapse of the global economy and it might not make us rich because if we mined too many precious metals from asteroids they won't be rare and valuable on earth anymore luckily metal isn't the only valuable resource up there astronomers say some asteroids have frozen water inside them people could use it to produce rocket engine propellant for possible space colonization in the future some companies already think that mining asteroids is a good idea - how would they do it well they would use three possible methods the first would be to bring raw asteroid material down to earth and use it here the second would be to process the materials on-site out in space we need a spaceship and specialized tools for that but the wildest idea is to bring the asteroid closer to the earth to mine it doing this would require robots that would anchor the iron asteroid with simple magnets and pull it to a safe orbit around the moon or the earth the asteroids with less metal could be caught with special harpoons or claws and then be mined safely we know asteroids can be dangerous though just look at what happened to the dinosaurs a big asteroid hitting a planet can cause earthquakes tsunamis and raise so much dirt and debris in the atmosphere that it would block out the sunlight no worries though space agencies are always keeping an eye on them and making sure that none are currently on a collision course with our planet what else is worth a lot of money up there well the most expensive man-made object is also in space and that is the International Space Station it took roughly 150 billion dollars to build it and maintaining and supporting the ISS cost three to four billion dollars a year ISS circles the planet every 90 minutes which means astronauts on board see the Sun set every hour and a half but the most expensive thing know is dark matter it's also the most mysterious substance it doesn't absorb reflect or emit light so it's completely invisible to study dark matter scientists need very complex and expensive tools such as xenon gas the cost of all this is no less than ten million dollars making dark matter a very expensive material or anti material with a cost of a million trillion trillion dollars per ounce but you can't get free shipping with Amazon Prime yeah space exploration can be a very expensive enterprise but technologies developed during that exploration are used every day on earth like digital cameras maps internet global communication and weather prediction this is all thanks to the efforts of scientists astronauts

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Keywords: bright side, brightside, bright side videos, good news, biggest asteroid to hit earth, biggest asteroid in the world, biggest asteroid found, biggest asteroid passing earth, smallest asteroid in the universe, smallest asteroid size, known near earth asteroids, asteroids coming near earth, asteroids, meteors, space facts, how asteroids are made, how asteroids look like, what are asteroids comets and meteors, how can asteroids affect the earth, how do asteroids come to earth

Id: llfVSDV1C0c

Length: 6min 49sec (409 seconds)

Published: Wed Jun 17 2020