[meteorite-list] Friday Thoughts

From: Sterling K. Webb <sterling_k_webb_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Fri, 5 Apr 2013 19:23:08 -0500
Message-ID: <339A1C86C17F4C3096DD6339E352E538_at_ATARIENGINE2>

Kevin, List,

A 500 meter asteroid would weigh about 144 million
tons. In rock generally (Earth's crust) platinum makes
up about 1/1,000,000 of 1%. There would be about
1.5 tons of platinum, or 1500 kilos, or 1,500,000 grams,
worth about $2,250,000,000. More or less.

All you have to do is pick through it one atom at a
time and drop all the platinum atoms into a baggie...
You'll need about 3,000 baggies for your asteroid's
platinum.

And a pair of atomic tweezers.

However, Planetary Resources is welcome to drop
one of their platinum wiffleballs in my back yard
any time.

http://www.economist.com/node/21553419
The platimun value of Earth rock wouldn't pay the
mission cost, much less the cost of its own extraction.
But it is beieved that asteroids are much richer in these
materials than the Earth's crust. The current theory
is that asteroids brought these materials to Earth but
that they followed the iron down into the core during
formation, leaving only traces behind.

The highest meteoritic abundances are found in the
metal-rich phases of chondrites and in iron meteorites.
Abundances are similar to iridium. (Remember the
iridium marker zone 65 million years ago?)

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/04/24/us-space-asteroid-mining-idUSBRE83N06U20120424
"Planetary Resources... said a 30-meter long (98-foot)
asteroid can hold as much as $25 billion to $50 billion
worth of platinum at today's prices, [co-founder]
Diamandis said."

The abundance of platinum may be as much as 900
times more than earth's crustal rocks. That would make
our 500 meter example (above) worth 2 TRILLION
in platinum.

Here's another interesting reference on asteroidal
platinum:
http://www.astronomysource.com/tag/platinum-from-asteroids/



Sterling K. Webb
----------------------------------------------------------------------
----- Original Message -----
From: "Kevin Kichinka" <marsrox at gmail.com>
To: <meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com>
Sent: Friday, April 05, 2013 4:02 PM
Subject: [meteorite-list] Friday Thoughts


> Team Meteorite:
>
> Ron Baalke just posted a news article regarding 'mining asteroids'.
> Here's a quote:
>
> "Platinum-group metals, or PGMs, are among the most valuable (and most
> talked about) resources that asteroids could yield. The price of
> platinum is
> currently just a bit less than the price of gold - about $1,520 per
> ounce.
> Anderson said a single 500-meter-wide (quarter-mile-wide) asteroid
> could contain
> more platinum than has been mined during the history of humanity.
> Planetary
> Resources is looking at a process that would turn the extracted
> platinum into
> 220-pound, 7-foot-wide "wiffleballs" of foamed metal that could be
> sent down
> through the atmosphere without breaking up. The balls would hit the
> ground at a
> velocity of about 60 mph."
>
> This makes me wonder.....
>
> - what government entity will permit 220 lb. spheres of metal to rain
> down on their population and,
>
> - how come we haven't recovered any platinum-rich meteorites?
>
> Kevin Kichinka
> Rio del Oro, Santa Ana, Costa Rica
> www.theartofcollectingmeteorites.com
> 'The Global Meteorite Price Report - 2013'
> Marsrox at gmail.com
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Received on Fri 05 Apr 2013 08:23:08 PM PDT