A space rock worth $5.4 trillion? That’s the estimated value (according to figures in an article by Myra P. Saefong on MarketWatch.com), of the precious metals and materials contained in asteroid 2011 UW-158 that passed close to Earth this past Sunday. As the detailed images of Pluto from NASA’s New Horizon spacecraft continue to stream in (see the latest from NASA here), literal gold mines are passing relatively close to our own planet. It took New Horizons 9 years to travel the 3 billion miles to reach Pluto. However, 2011 UW-158 passed about 1.5 million miles (~ 6 lunar distances) from Earth on Sunday. Although the costs of establishing viable space mining operations is likely to be easily in the tens of billions of dollars, recovery of just 1% of the precious metals from 2011 UW-158 would put the operation in the black.

Since these asteroids support no known life of any kind (plant or animal), the only environmental damage caused by a space mining operation would be restricted to those associated with the launch and recovery, from Earth, of the rockets needed to service the operation. The science and technology have not been fully developed, of course. NASA is planning a mission (OSIRIS-REx), to be launched next year, that is designed to help us learn how to map and analyze the composition of such precious metal and mineral-rich asteroids.

Given the plethora of problems associated with precious metals mining on Earth, perhaps moving the operations off-planet is a good idea…

Image Credit: Arecibo Observatory