Asteroid flyby could be worth $200 billion

The asteroid that’ll buzz past Earth on Friday is a tantalizing flyby for prospective space miners. Asteroid miners say the space rock, which measures half the length of a football field, could be worth almost $200 billion.
Officials from the space mining firm Deep Space Industries have emphasized this is just an estimate. The asteroid 2012 DA14′s composition remains uncertain, and astronomers only approximate its size based on its brightness. However, if Deep Space Industries is correct, 2012 DA14 could contain $130 billion in metals and $65 billion in water.
With 2012 DA14 traveling so close to the Earth–17,200 above the Indian Ocean, beneath geosynchronous satellites–the space rock’s historic approach is raising eyebrows for companies with ambitious plans to mine asteroids in the future. However, 2012 DA14 is not on their “to mine” list; it has a highly tilted orbit, and would be too challenging to chase down. Deep Space officials did remark, however, that the asteroid’s visit to Earth’s skies shows just how many resources remain in space that can be mined and put to use.

The Space Reporter