After a journey of seven years and almost 4 billion miles, NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft landed gently within the Utah desert on the morning of Sept. 24, 2023, with a treasured payload. The spacecraft introduced again a pattern from the asteroid Bennu.
Roughly half a pound of fabric collected from the 85 million-ton asteroid (77.6 billion kg) will assist scientists study concerning the formation of the photo voltaic system, together with whether or not asteroids like Bennu embrace the chemical substances for all times.
NASA’s mission was budgeted at US$800 million and can find yourself costing round $1.16 billion for slightly below 9 ounces of pattern (255 g). However is that this the costliest materials recognized? Not even shut.
I am a professor of astronomy. I exploit Moon and Mars rocks in my educating and have a modest assortment of meteorites. I marvel at the truth that I can maintain in my hand one thing that’s billions of years outdated from billions of miles away.
The price of pattern return
A handful of asteroid works out to $132 million per ounce, or $4.7 million per gram. That is about 70,000 instances the value of gold, which has been within the vary of $1,800 to $2,000 per ounce ($60 to $70 per gram) for the previous few years.
The primary extraterrestrial materials returned to Earth got here from the Apollo program. Between 1969 and 1972, six Apollo missions introduced again 842 kilos (382 kg) of lunar samples.
The complete price ticket for the Apollo program, adjusted for inflation, was $257 billion. These Moon rocks have been a relative discount at $19 million per ounce ($674 thousand per gram), and naturally Apollo had extra worth in demonstrating applied sciences for human spaceflight.
NASA is planning to carry samples again from Mars within the early 2030s to see if any include traces of historic life. The Mars Pattern Return mission goals to return 30 pattern tubes with a complete weight of a pound (450 g). The Perseverance rover has already cached 10 of those samples.
Nonetheless, prices have grown as a result of the mission is advanced, involving a number of robots and spacecraft. Bringing again the samples may run $11 billion, placing their price at $690 million per ounce ($24 million per gram), 5 instances the unit price of the Bennu samples.
Some area rocks are free
Some area rocks price nothing. Virtually 50 tons of free samples from the photo voltaic system rain down on the Earth on daily basis. Most dissipate within the ambiance, but when they attain the bottom they’re referred to as meteorites, and most of these come from asteroids.
Meteorites can get pricey as a result of it may be troublesome to acknowledge and retrieve them. Rocks all look related until you are a geology knowledgeable.
Most meteorites are stony, referred to as chondrites, and they are often purchased on-line for as little as $15 per ounce (50 cents per gram). Chondrites differ from regular rocks in containing spherical grains referred to as chondrules that shaped as molten droplets in area on the start of the photo voltaic system 4.5 billion years in the past.
Iron meteorites are distinguished by a darkish crust, attributable to melting of the floor as they arrive via the ambiance, and an inside sample of lengthy metallic crystals. They price $50 per ounce ($1.77 per gram) and even increased. Pallasites are stony-iron meteorites laced with the mineral olivine. When reduce and polished, they’ve a translucent yellow-green colour and might price over $1,000 per ounce ($35 per gram).
Various meteorites have reached us from the Moon and Mars. Near 600 have been acknowledged as coming from the Moon, and the biggest, weighing 4 kilos (1.8 kg), bought for a value that works out to be about $4,700 per ounce ($166 per gram).
About 175 meteorites are recognized as having come from Mars. Shopping for one would price about $11,000 per ounce ($388 per gram).
Researchers can work out the place meteorites come from by utilizing their touchdown trajectories to undertaking their paths again to the asteroid belt or evaluating their composition with totally different courses of asteroids. Consultants can inform the place Moon and Mars rocks come from by their geology and mineralogy.
The limitation of those “free” samples is that there is no such thing as a technique to know the place on the Moon or Mars they got here from, which limits their scientific usefulness. Additionally, they begin to get contaminated as quickly as they land on Earth, so it is arduous to inform if any microbes inside them are extraterrestrial.
Costly parts and minerals
Some parts and minerals are costly as a result of they’re scarce. Easy parts within the periodic desk have low costs. Per ounce, carbon prices one-third of a cent, iron prices 1 cent, aluminum prices 56 cents, and even mercury is lower than a greenback (per 100 grams, carbon prices $2.40, iron prices lower than a cent and alumnium prices 19 cents). Silver is $14 per ounce (50 cents per gram), and gold, $1,900 per ounce ($67 per gram).
Seven radioactive parts are extraordinarily uncommon in nature and so troublesome to create within the lab that they eclipse the value of NASA’s Mars Pattern Return. Polonium-209, the costliest of those, prices $1.4 trillion per ounce ($49 billion per gram).
Gems might be costly, too. Excessive-quality emeralds are 10 instances the value of gold, and white diamonds are 100 instances the value of gold.
Some diamonds have a boron impurity that offers them a vivid blue hue. They’re present in solely a handful of mines worldwide, and at $550 million per ounce ($19 million per gram) they rival the price of the upcoming Mars samples – an oz is 142 carats, however only a few gems are that giant.
The most costly artificial materials is a tiny spherical “cage” of carbon with a nitrogen atom trapped inside. The atom contained in the cage is extraordinarily secure, so can be utilized for timekeeping. Endohedral fullerenes are manufactured from carbon materials which may be used to create extraordinarily correct atomic clocks. They’ll price $4 billion per ounce ($141 million per gram).
Most costly of all
Antimatter happens in nature, nevertheless it’s exceptionally uncommon as a result of any time an antiparticle is created it rapidly annihilates with a particle and produces radiation.
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The particle accelerator at CERN can produce 10 million antiprotons per minute. That seems like quite a bit, however at that charge it might take billions of years and price a billion billion (1018) {dollars} to generate an oz (3.5 x 1016 {dollars} per gram).
Warp drives as envisaged by “Star Trek,” that are powered by matter- antimatter annihilation, should wait.
Chris Impey, College Distinguished Professor of Astronomy, College of Arizona
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