Vanderbilt: New Detector Perfect for Asteroid Mining

[bystander]

New Detector Perfect for Asteroid Mining
Vanderbilt University | 2015 Nov 20

[img3="Prototype of a CubeSat version of the gamma-ray spectrometer built from off-the-shelf components that weighs only one pound and consumes about three watts of electricity yet can do the job of a full lab system that weighs 200 pounds and fills ten cubic feet of space. (Credit: Burger Lab / Fisk University)"]http://news.vanderbilt.edu/files/CubeSa ... 267671.jpg[/img3][hr][/hr]

The grizzled asteroid miner is a stock character in science fiction. Now, a couple of recent events – one legal and the other technological – have brought asteroid mining a step closer to reality.

The legal step was taken when the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee passed a bill titled H.R. 2262—SPACE Act of 2015. The bill has a number of measures designed to facilitate commercial space development, including a provision that gives individuals or companies ownership of any material that they mine in outer space. According to one estimate, asteroid mining could ultimately develop into a trillion-dollar market.

The technological development is a new generation of gamma-ray spectroscope that appears perfectly suited for detecting veins of gold, platinum, rare earths and other valuable material hidden within the asteroids, moons and other airless objects floating around the solar system – just the type of “sensor” that will be needed by asteroid miners to sniff out these valuable materials.

The concept was developed by a team of scientists from Vanderbilt and Fisk Universities, NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and the Planetary Science Institute. It is described in the article “New ultra-bright scintillators for planetary gamma-ray spectroscopy” published Oct. 23 in the SPIE Newsroom. SPIE is the International Society for Optics and Photonics and the SPIE Newsroom highlights noteworthy scientific achievements in the area of optics and photonics. ...

[Beyond]

Wouldn't that detector work just as well on earth?

[neufer]

Wouldn't that detector work just as well on earth?

Where are you going to find an asteroid on earth?

[Beyond]

Wouldn't that detector work just as well on earth?

Where are you going to find an asteroid on earth?

Isn't that what the detector is for?

[neufer]

Wouldn't that detector work just as well on earth?

Where are you going to find an asteroid on earth?

Isn't that what the detector is for?

No....

"a new generation of gamma-ray spectroscope that appears perfectly suited for detecting veins of gold, platinum, rare earths and other valuable material hidden within the asteroids, moons and other airless objects floating around the solar system"

<<In geology, a vein is a distinct sheetlike body of crystallized minerals within a rock. Veins form when mineral constituents carried by an aqueous solution within the rock mass are deposited through precipitation. The hydraulic flow involved is usually due to hydrothermal circulation.>>

Hence:

• 1) One must first begin with an asteroid.
  
  2) One then uses the gamma-ray spectroscope to detect veins of gold, platinum, rare earths and other valuable material hidden within that asteroid
  
  3) Finally, one throws away the gold, platinum, rare earths and other "valuable" material in order to announce the discovery of water on an asteroid.

[geckzilla]

Presumably you could somehow detect gamma rays bouncing off asteroids from Earth, but I don't know what you'd do with that one pixel worth of data. The idea is to figure out where to land on the asteroid in order to mine it... kinda hard to do at such a low resolution.

[Beyond]

So, neufer, the detector doesn't work in air and couldn't be used on earth to find anything? What, it's too sensitive?

[Chris Peterson]

So, neufer, the detector doesn't work in air and couldn't be used on earth to find anything? What, it's too sensitive?

The detector works in air. But this application is primarily aimed at mapping bodies by looking at cosmogenic gamma rays- gamma rays produced by the collision of high energy cosmic rays with the planetary surface, something that is only significant with airless or nearly airless bodies. Neutron and gamma ray spectrometers are used above Earth for making mineralogical measurements looking at radiogenic emissions (natural decay of radioactive isotopes), but for mining, there are usually better approaches available.

[Beyond]

Ok, got it. Thanks Chris.