Asteroid with platinum set to pass by Earth

The news has left developers of asteroid-mining technologies intrigued.

On Sunday, July 19, a platinum-loaded asteroid will be flying by earth.

In today’s fly-by, asteroid 2011 UW-158, will still be 2.4 million km from Earth – that’s about six times farther than the Moon – even at it’s closest approach.

If you don’t happen to own a telescope – fear not.

They’re also holding a live show for people who might want to catch a glimpse of the asteroid but don’t have a telescpope.

Slooh, a project which links telescopes to the internet, will be broadcasting from the observatory in the Canary Islands. The asteroid is called the 2011 UW-158 and is one of the three “potentially hazardous asteroids” identified by the Minor Planet Center, together with the 1994 AW1 and the 1999 JD6.

The precious metal is rare on Earth and 1000 cubic centimetres of platinum is worth close to US$1 million.

The composition of asteroid 2011 UW158 has been established with the help of spectrometers measuring the intensity of light reflected from an object.

The broadcast will start at 6 p.m. ET on Sunday and will include commentary from host Eric Edelman and Slooh astronomer Bob Berman about the asteroid and the lucrative material it harbours.

Amateur astronomers will be able to take a good look at the asteroid as it passes by at 30 times closer than the nearest planet at around 10pm, .

‘What makes this unusual is the large amount of platinum believed to be lurking in the body of this space visitor. “Can it be mined someday, perhaps not too far in the future?”

The demonstration vehicle will validate several core technologies including the avionics, control systems and software, which the company will incorporate into future spacecraft that will venture into the Solar System and prospect for resource-rich near-Earth asteroids.

And the space mining firm announced yesterday that its Arkyd 3 Reflight (A3R) spacecraft deployed successfully from the global Space Station and has begun a 90-day mission.