Vanderbilt: New Detector Perfect for Asteroid Mining
Posted: Sat Nov 21, 2015 5:53 pm
New Detector Perfect for Asteroid Mining
Vanderbilt University | 2015 Nov 20
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. ...