Space Miners: Earth-Buzzing Asteroid May Be Worth $195 Billion

by Mike Wall, SPACE.com Senior Writer

Date: 12 February 2013 Time: 07:41 PM ET

An artist's conception of the Feb. 15 flyby of asteroid 2012 DA14.
CREDIT: NASA.

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The space rock set to give Earth a historically close shave this Friday (Feb. 15) 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.

More - Link >>> http://www.space.com/19758-asteroid-worth-billions-2012-da14-flyby.html

Source: Space.com .

Related Blog Post --

Feb. 15: Close Earth Flyby of Large Asteroid (2013 Feb. 4):

Link >>> http://spacewatchtower.blogspot.com/2013/02/feb-15-close-earth-flyby-of-large.html

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