Science - 2012-da14-asteroid

Feb

2013

12:09pm, EST

Space miners say Earth-buzzing asteroid worth $195 billion

NASA

An artist's conception of the Friday's flyby of asteroid 2012 DA14.

By Mike Wall
Space.com

The space rock set to give Earth a historically close shave on Friday may be worth nearly $200 billion, prospective asteroid miners say.

The 150-foot-wide (45 meters) asteroid 2012 DA14 — which will zoom within 17,200 miles (27,000 kilometers) of Earth on Friday, marking the closest approach by such a large space rock that astronomers have ever known about in advance — may harbor $65 billion of recoverable water and $130 billion in metals, say officials with celestial mining firm Deep Space Industries.

That's just a guess, they stressed, since 2012 DA14's composition is not well known and its size is an estimate based on the asteroid's brightness.

The company has no plans to go after 2012 DA14; the asteroid's orbit is highly tilted relative to Earth, making it too difficult to chase down. But the space rock's close flyby serves to illustrate the wealth of asteroid resources just waiting to be extracted and used, Deep Space officials said. [Deep Space Industries' Asteroid-Mining Vision in Photos]

"While this week's visitor isn't going the right way for us to harvest it, there will be others that are, and we want to be ready when they arrive," Deep Space Chairman Rick Tumlinson said in a statement Tuesday.

Deep Space Industries wants to use asteroid resources to help humanity expand its footprint out into the solar system. The company plans to convert space rock water into rocket fuel, which would be used to top off the tanks of off-Earth satellites and spaceships cheaply and efficiently.

NASA

This graphic shows 2012 DA14's path past Earth.

Asteroidal metals such as iron and nickel, for their part, would form the basis of a space-based manufacturing industry that could build spaceships, human habitats and other structures off the planet.

The idea is to dramatically reduce the amount of material that needs to be launched from Earth, since it currently costs at least $10 million to send 1 ton of material to high-Earth orbit, officials said.

"Getting these supplies to serve communications satellites and coming crewed missions to Mars from in-space sources like asteroids is key if we are going to explore and settle space," Tumlinson said.

Deep Space Industries is just one of two asteroid-mining firms that have revealed their existence and intentions in the past 10 months. The other is Planetary Resources, which has financial backing from billionaires such as Google execs Larry Page and Eric Schmidt.

Deep Space aims to launch a phalanx of small, robotic prospecting probes called Fireflies in 2015. Sample-return missions to potential targets would occur shortly thereafter, with space mining operations possibly beginning around 2020.

Planetary Resources also hopes its activities open the solar system up for further and more efficient exploration. The company may launch its first low-cost prospecting space telescopes within the next year or so.

Follow Space.com senior writer Mike Wall on Twitter @michaeldwall or Space.com @Spacedotcom. We're also on Facebook and Google+.

Feb

2013

4:18pm, EST

Scientists put their own spin on asteroid flyby

NASA/JPL-Caltech

This NASA diagram depicting the passage of asteroid 2012 DA14 through the Earth-moon system on Friday.

By Tariq Malik
Space.com

An asteroid half the size of a football field will buzz close by Earth on Friday, coming closer than many weather satellites, but there is absolutely no chance the space rock will hit the planet, NASA says.

The asteroid 2012 DA14will approach within 17,200 miles (27,000 kilometers) of Earth when it zips by the planet on Friday. It will be 5,000 miles closer than the ring of weather, communications and GPS navigation satellites that orbit the Earth, but it poses no impact threat, NASA scientists assured.

According to detailed observations of the 150-foot (45 meters) 2012 DA14 since its discovery last year, "there is no chance that the asteroid might be on a collision course with Earth," NASA officials said in a statement.

But the space rock encounter will mark the closest-ever known Earth flyby of an asteroid the size of 2012 DA14, with NASA scientists and astronomers around the world preparing to take advantage of the event to take a close look at how asteroids work.

NASA

Asteroid 2012 DA14 is about the size of half a football field and will make a close approach to Earth on Friday.

One study in particular seeks to pin down exactly how the asteroid spins on its axis.

"Knowing the direction of spin is essential to accurately predicting its future path, and thus determining just how close it will get to Earth in the coming years," study leader Michael Busch of the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO) said in a statement.

Busch and his colleagues will use two huge radio telescopes in New Mexico, the Very Large Array and Very Long Baseline Array, along with NASA's Goldstone radar antenna in California in an attempt to determine the direction of asteroid 2012 DA's spin.

The telescopes seek out so-called "speckles" in the radio signals reflected by the asteroid's uneven surface, and then compare which observatory detected the speckles first in order to determine the spin direction.

Knowing an asteroid's spin is key to understanding how a space rock radiates heat from absorbed sunlight over time. That, in turn, can allow astronomers to project how an asteroid's orbit can change over long periods as it circles the sun.

Asteroids, like Earth, have a warmest part of their day, during which time they develop a hotspot that can be observed in infrared light. Later, the asteroid emits the absorbed radiation back out into space, which can serve as a gentle — but firm — jet-like push forward, researchers said.

The phenomenon is called the "Yarkovsky Effect" after the 19th-century Russian engineer I.O. Yarkovsky, who first identified it.

"When the asteroid passes close to the Earth or another large body, its orbit can be changed quickly by the gravitational effect of the larger body, but the Yarkovsky Effect, though smaller, is at work all the time," Busch said.

Alexandra Bolling, NRAO / AUI / NSF

This diagram shows how the Yarkovsky Effect slows an asteroid's orbital motion; opposite rotation direction would speed up the orbital motion. Astronomers around the world are preparing to study the close approach of asteroid 2012 DA14 on Friday.

Asteroid 2012 DA14 was discovered in 2012 by astronomers with the La Sagra Sky Survey at the Astronomical Observatory of Mallorca in Spain. The asteroid will make its closest approach to Earth at 2:24 p.m. EST Friday, at which time it may be visible in telescopes and binoculars to observers in Asia, Australia and Europe, where the local time will be nighttime.

Visit Space.com each day this week for complete coverage of asteroid 2012 DA14 and its Earth flyby.

Editor's note: If you snap a photo of asteroid 2012 DA14 or any other night sky object, and you'd like to share it for a possible story or image gallery, send photos, comments and your name and location to Managing Editor Tariq Malik at spacephotos@space.com.

You can follow Space.com Managing Editor Tariq Malik on Twitter @tariqjmalik. Follow Space.com on Twitter @Spacedotcom. We're also on Facebook and Google+.