Asteroids are minor planets that usually sit in the inner solar system, orbiting the sun. There are millions of them flying around space and their collisions – known as impact events – have played a significant role in shaping many planets. These space rocks contain a number of vital raw materials including gold, iridium, silver, platinum, iron, magnesium, nickel, aluminium, and titanium, which are all becoming increasingly scarce on Earth.
Carolin Crawford, a UK astrophysicist researcher based at the University of Cambridge has an answer to the problem.
She envisages a future where space agencies like NASA use asteroids to extract vital materials instead of digging deeper into the Earth.
The 55-year-old explained her theory during a BBC Radio 4 “In Our Time” broadcast on asteroids.
She said in 2005: “It is a very interesting possibility when you look at our mineral resources on Earth, they haven’t run out yet, but give them a couple of centuries and they will be in short supply.
“You could set up a mining camp on one of these asteroids and get billions of tonnes of high-grade metal and there is also water to sustain the camp.
“Or we could tow an asteroid to orbit around Earth as a little petrol station for future missions.”
Ms Crawford even took the idea one step further, detailing how the theory could help further exploration of space.
She added: “So it is a supply of mineral resources and we are going to need these if we want to colonise the solar system.
“If we are building large space structures and need lots of rocket fuel, it does not make sense to launch it up to space.
“Why not just use what is already up there? It’s easily extracted from small objects that don’t have a lot of gravity.
“These asteroids are not just iron and nickel but they also have platinum – which we use as a catalyst converter.
“All these elements are in the core of the Earth where we cannot get to.
“It is easier to develop a system to go to the asteroid, than penetrating to the great depths of the Earth’s core.”
It comes after Japanese scientists uncovered the “history of the universe” from a single grain of asteroid rock.
However, it was also revealed how astronomers lost a 600-mile-wide space rock.