Asteroid UW-158 is set to wizz past Earth today, carrying an estimated five trillion dollars in platinum.
Spectroscopic analysis has revealed the composition of the asteroid, and made it a prime target for future asteroid-mining missions. It is approximately 452 metres by 1,011 metres in size. If the analysis is correct, it could be carrying an astonishing 90 million tons of platinum. It will swing past Earth at a distance of 2.4 million km, and will not be visible to the naked eye.
Paging Bruce Willis...
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Francis on Tuesday July 21 2015, @07:47AM
And it would probably wipe out a good chunk of life as we know it. Land it on land and it blocks the sun for a while. Land in the ocean and you get massive waves. Something that big traveling that fast is not something you want to hit the earth.
(Score: 2) by TheRaven on Tuesday July 21 2015, @08:16AM
sudo mod me up
(Score: 3, Funny) by aristarchus on Tuesday July 21 2015, @08:25AM
Nudging it to impact the moon
Yes, good idea. Unless it knocks the moon out of its tidally locked orbit, and we lose the tides and also our orbital stability and begin crashing towards the sun! See what your greed has done? It's a goddamned paradox, Louise!
(Score: 2) by Translation Error on Tuesday July 21 2015, @03:43PM
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Tuesday July 21 2015, @02:05PM
Send chunks of it into Earth's atmosphere that are too small to do real damage? Land them someplace sparsely inhabited like the Sahara?
Washington DC delenda est.