GOLDEN ASTEROID - Most Expensive 1 000 000 000 000 $ Trillion

did you know that diamonds sometimes just fall from the sky platinum - and nickel and gold even know this is not a joke it is indeed possible chemical composition of meteorites includes all kinds of substances some are quite valuable although platinum is indeed rare among them typically meteorites are just plain boulders and this totally makes sense because most likely they're just fragments of ancient planets imagine throwing a rock at a glass bottle the Swift motion of the arm the whooshing sound the glass shattering into dozens of shards according to one theory this is more or less how meteorites came to be although on a different scale millions of years ago a planet was silently making its way through the expanses of outer space when suddenly it met another large celestial body and burst into pieces as a result of the collision larger fragments continued their existence as asteroids and smaller ones became meteorites and meteors each of these rocks has a trajectory of its own determined by the collision of the billions of the planetary fragments flying through space a few come close to Earth and even fall on our planet here are some figures to give you an idea of the scale of this phenomena 93% of all meteorites falling on earth are stony they may have iron or manganese inclusions but mostly they're plain rocks with a fusion crust on the surface about 6% are iron meteorites meaning more or less what it sounds like they are made up of good old iron plus maybe a bit of nickel and only 1% of all space rocks contain something truly unusual it may be diamonds platinum gold but only as small inclusions if a meteorite consisted only of gold or platinum it would never make it to the Earth's surface when falling down through the atmosphere of our planet meteorites may reach the speed of 72 meters per second which is more than 160,000 miles per hour naturally the space rock gets heated to unbelievably high temperatures easily reaching 2,500 to 3,000 degrees Fahrenheit it can even heat to 18,000 degrees now gold melts at just about 1950 degrees and at 5200 degrees boils and evaporates so unfortunately the most curious space rocks simply do not reach our planet's surface then again when talking about space rocks we should take a look at what is happening in space in space things get really interesting indeed meteorites on earth are rather tiny okay they may reach 20 pounds or 50 or even a hundred the largest single piece iron meteorite found on earth known as Hoba is estimated to weigh over 60 tons and measure slightly less than nine by nine by three feet but honestly can you call this large essentially an asteroid is a meteorite as well only tremendously more massive the size of a small planet the solar system has hundreds of thousands of discovered asteroids 700,000 as of 2017 and the overall estimate is one to two million the bulk of them orbits the Sun somewhere between Mars and Jupiter which in space terms is not so distant from Earth what sort of things can we expect to find on asteroids basically the same as on earth except air in life for instance asteroids have water frozen into ice but water nonetheless as we know water is made up of hydrogen and oxygen so in theory it is possible to break these vast slobs of ice into breathable air and rocket fuel granted today we don't have the technology to accomplish such a task but scientists are working on it however water is not that common on asteroids unlike carbon 75% of all asteroids so far analyzed by researchers our carbonaceous not exactly fascinating since coal and graphite are quite common on earth as well but carbon may also mean diamonds and that is definitely something worthwhile the second most common are stony asteroids they make up 15% of the overall number and are indeed boring the remaining 10% are metallic asteroids for which scientists have high hopes related to the possibility of mining for valuable ores and minerals we've already mentioned gold and platinum and it's common knowledge that gold is cool and plays a central role in the global economy however in reality precious metals are not necessarily the most expensive or sought for the modern high-tech industry has a huge demand for other elements some of which command in credibly high prices let's take as meum a rare and really expensive metal the world's annual output of osmium production reaches only a few dozen pounds as of 2018 it sells for $400 per troy ounce and that price had held steady for more than two decades one ounce of palladium has a price tag of $1,050 this amount might fail to impressive compared osmium but gold is just slightly more expensive and gold is a rather abundant commodity while osmium is in short supply which is getting shorter by year if you've never heard about rhenium don't be surprised this is a rare metal the global supply of it is estimated to be a mere 13,000 tonnes one pound of it may cost up to $4,500 rhodium is another rare metal with the global supply of 30 thousand tonnes and the price tag of one ounce currently being $700 rhodium is indispensable for manufacturing certain high-tech products and its overall quantity on the planet is not growing other metals that can be found on asteroids include ruthenium nickel and molybdenum this is an entire treasure trove worth of metals which are rare on earth and let's not forget of iron ore however common and boring and maybe iron is the foundation of all heavy manufacturing a single mile wide asteroid may yield up to two billion tons of rich iron ore to put this figure in perspective the worldwide iron ore extraction output currently reaches about 3 billion tons a year that's all countries of the world taken together basically one small asteroid equals a little under 70% of the global iron output somewhere between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter a huge asteroid named psyche circles around the Sun this celestial rock 157 miles wide consists almost completely of iron nickel alloys an ore cache of this size could satisfy the needs of humankind for millions of years of course iron and nickel aren't in the same league as diamonds the latter is an epitome of perfection and elegance while the former are simple crude and cheap and yet last year's net profit of the smelting giant nor nickel amounted to three billion dollars while the same figure for the largest diamond producer biers came to only a billion-and-a-half let's not forget the De Beers is almost a global monopoly unlike noir nickel which is merely one of the larger players in their respective markets so if you find a magic lamp and a genie offers you a choice between ore and diamonds pick or on second thought precious metals on a cosmic scale are definitely something to think about in 2015 the asteroid u W 158 passed by earth it was really small as they come just 1050 by 500 feet this space rock too tiny to even have a name contained 100 million tons of platinum that's at least three hundred billion dollars in current prices but platinum wasn't the only metal it had scientists believe the total price of all ores contained in this asteroid would add up to five trillion dollars now if you recall psych the 157 mile wide metallic asteroid its total worth is estimated to be 10,000 quadrillion dollars to imagine that since the entire economy of planet Earth is worth 78 trillion bucks that one asteroid is worth 128 thousand times the world's economy there is the question of what will become of the prices of metals and the world's economy once the space or finds its way into the market will the global market be able to absorb the deluge of gold and platinum or crash under the weight perhaps we will soon see currently scientists are working on two different approaches to asteroid mining the easier option is to try and catch a small asteroid by hauling it closer to earth at least to the vicinity of the moon orbit this operation is likely to be entrusted to robots and involves an unmanned space station approaching the asteroid hooking itself to it with special anchors and pulling it in the needed direction sounds like science fiction but this is actually quite practice about once in near-earth orbit the asteroid will be mined but the process will not require digging actual mines with the ore located close to the surface mines won't be necessary it'll be enough to shatter the surface layers and catch the flying fragments with a magnet in the low gravity conditions this won't require much power the device scientists are planning to use looks like a rake with magnetic prongs another tool for extracting or in space is the good old basically the same thing prospectors used during the California Gold Rush in low gravity it works with incredible efficiency much better than on earth NASA began the project six years ago currently the unmanned station is still at the design stage space suits for future prospectors however are already being tested astronauts are practicing coming down on the asteroid surface according to estimates towing the asteroid to a near Earth orbit will cost fifteen to twenty hundred thousand dollars that isn't that expensive considering the potential payoff the second option is even bolder in 2014 scientists came up with a project of a robotic expedition to cite the authors hoped that the probe would launch from the earth in 2016 but the initial plan failed however the idea wasn't altogether abandoned the timeline was adjusted with the launch scheduled for 2022 the probe is supposed to reach psych after a four-year journey and spend another six months moving around on the asteroid collecting data and sending reports to earth of course site cannot be towed to earth but robots can fly to site they can sift through the soil collect ore samples pack them and send them wherever operators will tell them to and know the destination is not gonna be earth the idea is to construct transshipment stations in space with headquarters on a near-earth orbit this huge station will become home to the experts who will control the extraction process as well as the fuel and food warehouse further in space smaller refueling stations will be built the last outpost in the line will be the operation control unit from which operators will run the robotic extractors the ore samples gathered on sike will be first studied and classified there and then sent on down the line at the moment however most of this is a matter of theory rather than practice today scientists still haven't figured out how robots can function on the surface of a metallic asteroid in low gravity where they will get power for mining or how much power they will require after all this is not about digging mud the extracting machines will actually have to cut through iron and that should require considerable power nevertheless things are moving on the US is already developing or rather updating the legislation concerning property rights on Mineral Resources the problem is that one international treaty on resources has already signed back in 1967 the US the UK and the Soviet Union agreed that countries cannot claim ownership of celestial bodies or their parts this implies that resources on asteroids cannot be owned by a country or a private entity but belonged to all humankind as of today almost every country in the world has signed this treaty but in 1967 no one seemed to take the treaty seriously come on what property rights on celestial bodies what resources on asteroids Yuri Gagarin had already been to space but Neil Armstrong's moonwalk was still 2 years in the future nowadays it's a different story in 2015 the US Congress started working on another law which would give the right of ownership over asteroid resources to individuals or companies the treaty of 1967 is regarded as carrying no legal weight it's hard to imagine that an international treaty signed by 126 countries carries no legal weight but there we go at the moment it's not clear how things will play out but hopefully the infinite resources of space will serve the interests of all humankind rather than corporations and that's it for the time being we hope you enjoyed the video and thank you for watching [Music]

Channel: MAD LAB

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Keywords: gold asteroid, asteroid, nasa, asteroid mining, space, gold, meteorites, meteors, meteor, psyche 16, psyche, facts, meteorite, galaxy, asteroids, space facts, science, most expensive, expensive, most expensive thing in the world

Id: lOR6F8rZ4lw

Length: 12min 36sec (756 seconds)

Published: Fri Aug 23 2019