Earth's next 'mini-moon' could create a gold rush for asteroid miners
地球的下一个“迷你月球”可能会为小行星爱好者带来“淘金热”
Almost a year ago, the space science community watched as an asteroid entered Earth's orbit and circled above our heads for almost two months before departing. Scientists usually track such asteroids because of the risk they pose for life on Earth. But although they can pose a threat to our planet, asteroids are also potentially worth many billions of dollars because of the precious metals they contain. This is why space entrepreneurs and scientists are gearing up for the next asteroid visit, with the aim of capturing future space rocks and mining them.
差不多一年前，太空科学界目睹了一颗小行星进入地球轨道，在我们头顶上方环绕了近两个月才离去。科学家通常会追踪这类小行星，因为它们对地球生命构成威胁。然而，尽管小行星可能危及我们星球的安全，但因为其富含贵金属，其潜在价值也有望高达数十亿美元。正因如此，太空企业家和科学家们正积极迎接下一次的小行星造访，目的便是捕获这些未来的太空岩石并加以开采。
Most asteroids orbit the sun within rings between Mars and Jupiter known as the asteroid belts. And importantly, some of those asteroids are full of metals that could be used to make laptops and smartphones; metals such as platinum, cobalt, iron, and even gold. NASA once calculated that the metals in these asteroids could be worth $100 million for every person on Earth, and mining even just 10 of the most profitable asteroids could yield up to $1.5 trillion.
大多数小行星在火星与木星之间的环状区域内，其被称为小行星带，正围绕太阳运行。更重要的是，其中的一些小行星富含可用于制造笔记本电脑和智能手机的金属，比如铂、钴、铁，甚至是黄金。美国宇航局曾对其进行估算：这些小行星中的金属总价值可达人均1亿美元，如果仅开采其中10颗最具经济价值的小行星，就可能创造高达1.5万亿美元的收益。
A major question remains: Can we access these metals?
但这里有一个大问题：我们真的能得到这些金属吗？
Every so often, Jupiter's strong gravity sends an asteroid hurtling through the solar system, sometimes towards Earth. Last year, one of these asteroids entered Earth's orbit: asteroid 2024 PT5 from the Arjuna asteroid belt that's about 93 million miles (150 million kilometers) from the sun.
木星的强大引力时不时地会将某颗小行星弹射出去，使其飞速穿越太阳系，有时直指地球。去年，来自Arjuna小行星带的2024 PT5号小行星进入了地球轨道，而该小行星带距离太阳约9300万英里（约合1.5亿公里）。
2024 PT5 was called a "mini-moon," though this term was used loosely. A mini-moon is supposed to complete one full orbit of the Earth, but asteroid 2024 PT5 exited Earth's gravitational pull before it could make a whole trip. Still, the space rock mirrored our true moon's orbit overhead, earning it the mini-moon moniker — and it was indeed full of rare earth metals.
尽管这一称谓并不十分严谨，2024 PT5仍被称作"迷你月球"。它本应完成绕地球一周的全轨道运行，但小行星2024 PT5尚未完成整圈旅程便脱离了地球引力。尽管如此，它在我们头顶上方的运行轨迹与真正的月球几乎一致，且确实富含稀土金属，因而赢得了"迷你月球"的称谓。
While asteroid samples have been brought to Earth for research purposes before, such as with NASA's OSIRIS-REx and Japan's Hayabusa2 missions, the cost of these journeys has fallen between about $10 million and $150 million per gram of material, which would bankrupt any company trying to turn a regular profit.
此前虽已有小行星样本被带回地球用于科研，例如美国国家航空航天局的OSIRIS-REx任务和日本的隼鸟2号任务，但这些往返旅程的成本高达每克材料约1000万至1.5亿美元，足以令任何试图以常规方法赚取利润的公司破产。
Part of the reason for this high price tag is most asteroids are usually so far away that mining them isn’t profitable. Fuel and equipment costs alone would add up quite a bit. However, that's where mini-moons come in; these objects represent a far more achievable target for asteroid mining. After all, they're right there above our heads. In fact, last year's mini-moon sighting prompted many space-mining startups to make plans for more unexpected asteroid visits.
成本如此高昂的部分原因，在于大多数小行星距离地球都极为遥远，开采它们显然无利可图。光是燃料和设备成本就相当惊人。然而，这正是迷你月球的价值所在，因为这些天体对于小行星采矿目标更具可行性。毕竟它们就在我们头顶上方。事实上，去年迷你月球的出现已促使许多致力太空采矿的初创公司制定计划，以应对未来小行星的多次突发造访。
"If we had our systems up and running, we could go and get it," Joel Sercel, founder and CEO of TransAstra, an asteroid mining company, told Space.com at the time 2024 PT5 was in orbit. "We would fly out to it, capture it, and put it in a very stable orbit with a very small amount of rocket propellant. Then we have a permanent resource in space that we own."
小行星采矿公司TransAstra的创始人兼首席执行官乔尔·瑟塞尔（Joel Sercel）在2024 PT5进入轨道期间在Space.com表示："如果当时我们的系统已经就绪，我们就能前去捕获它，只需消耗极少量火箭推进剂就能把它送入一条非常稳定的轨道。这样我们就拥有了一份属于自己的永久性太空资源。"
There is one complication, however: Space entrepreneurs and scientific researchers disagree about how common mini-moons are, and fewer than 10 have been spotted within the last decade. What this means is that while there are many plans of how to capture these asteroids and use their metals, no one has ever pulled it off. What experts all agree on, though, is that reaching an asteroid in general is expensive and difficult.
然而这里有一个复杂的问题：太空企业家和科学研究人员对迷你月球的常见程度看法不一，过去十年中发现的迷你卫星不到10颗。这意味着，尽管关于如何捕获这些小行星并利用其金属资源的计划层出不穷，但至今无人真正付诸实现。然而，专家们一致认为，以常规方式到达小行星既昂贵又困难。
"Sometimes they're really hot; sometimes very cold," Mustafa Hassanalian, an associate professor at the New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology, told Space.com. "That's something that makes it challenging, [along with the] radiation, it makes any missions to asteroids complex."
新墨西哥矿业与技术学院副教授穆斯塔法·哈桑纳利安（Mustafa Hassanalian）在接受Space.com采访时表示："棘手之处在于这些小行星有时酷热难耐，有时又寒冷至极，再加上强烈的辐射，任何有关小行星探测任务都变得异常复杂。"
At any given time, there are about a dozen small asteroids circling the Earth, but most of them aren't big enough to make a trip worthwhile — but again, mini moons are just the right size to make mining them feasible economically..
在任意时间段内，有大约十几颗小行星正围绕地球运行，但体积都不大，不值得专程前往，但迷你卫星的大小恰到好处，使其在经济上具备开采的可行性
The challenge lies in finding them. But a team of scientists at the Vera C. Rubin Observatory, which holds the world's largest digital camera, has previously said that advances in asteroid detection will allow for better detection of mini-moons. With the observatory releasing its first images in June, space mining seems only a matter of time.
但问题在于如何找到它们。但薇拉·C·鲁宾天文台拥有世界上最大的数码相机，其中的一个科学团队此前曾表示：小行星探测的进步将有望更快发现迷你月球。随着6月份天文台的第一批图像发布，太空采矿似乎只是时间问题。
Chinese companies control between 80-90% of rare earth metal exports, which has pushed private companies in the U.S. and elsewhere to look for new sources in unlikely places. Copper — needed for wind turbines, nickel — required for solar panels, and platinum — vital for hydrogen-powered fuel cells — are found in abundance in certain asteroids.
中国的企业控制着全球80-90%的稀土金属出口，这促使美国和其他地方的私营公司纷纷将目光投向意想不到的地方，以寻求新的资源聚集地。风力涡轮机所需的铜、太阳能电池板所需的镍，以及对氢动力燃料电池至关重要的铂在某些小行星中大量存在。
Most rare materials on Earth come from previous asteroid impacts, but the Earth's gravity has pulled heavier elements into its core over billions of years, leaving us with only a small amount of these metals close enough to the surface for mining.
地球上的大多数稀有金属都源自以往的小行星撞击，但历经数十亿年，地球引力已将重元素吸入地核，只在地表附近留下少量可供开采的地方。
The first asteroid ‘soft landing’ was unintentional, when NASA touched down NEAR Shoemaker on asteroid Eros in 2001 after it ran out of propellant. However, scientists were surprised the spacecraft survived the landing at all, and the mission shut down two weeks later due to cold temperatures on the asteroid. Since then, multiple nations have made contact with asteroids, with Japan following soon after with Hayabusa which launched in 2003, and Hayabusa2 that lifted off in 2014. NASA reached another asteroid with the aforementioned OSIRIS-REx mission, launching on Sept. 8, 2016 and dropping off its samples on Sept. 24, 2023, becoming the latest space mission to return asteroid samples for testing. China launched Tianwen-2 on May 28, 2025, and it is set to return asteroid samples in 2027.
首次小行星"软着陆"实属意外，2001年，美国国家航空航天局的近地小行星交会探测器，在燃料耗尽后降落在爱神星上。然而该探测器竟能在着陆后幸存，这让科学家感到十分惊讶，但由于小行星表面温度过低，任务在两周后被迫终止。此后多个国家相继与小行星实现接触。日本紧随其后，先后于2003年及2014年发射了"隼鸟号"及"隼鸟2号"。美国国家航空航天局则通过前述的OSIRIS-REx任务抵达了另一颗小行星；该任务于2016年9月8日发射，并于2023年9月24日将样本送回地球，成为迄今最新一项完成小行星采样返回的太空任务。中国于2025年5月28日发射了天问二号，并将按计划于2027年携小行星样本返回。
So, why don't we have a booming asteroid mining industry already? Well, aside from the cost issues mentioned, asteroids spin very quickly, which makes landing on them and extracting metals difficult. Sercel from TransAstra says that the spacecraft that take back asteroid samples aren't really "landing" on the asteroids at all. Because asteroids don't have strong gravity like planets, there's nothing to keep the shapecraft tethered to the floor. Furthermore, because asteroids don't have atmospheres like Earth or Mars, they're vulnerable to the impact of thousands of tiny particles that kick up clouds of dust that would clog up any machinery. On previous mining missions, scientists got around this problem by using a robotic arm to grab pieces of debris before moving quickly away, but this tactic works only on small amounts of material.
那么，为何小行星采矿业至今没能蓬勃发展？除了前面提到的成本问题，也包括小行星自转速度极快，使得登陆并提取金属变得极其困难的原因。TransAstra的瑟塞尔表示，那些带回小行星样本的航天器其实根本根本没有真正“降落”在小行星上，因为小行星没有像行星那样的强大引力，根本无法将航天器固定在表面。此外，小行星缺乏像地球或火星那样的大气层保护，极易遭受无数微小颗粒的撞击，这些撞击会扬起巨大尘埃，堵塞机械设备。在此前的探测任务中，科学家想到依靠机械臂抓取碎片后迅速撤离的方式来应对这一难题，但这一方法仅适用于采集少量物质。
As a result, instead of landing directly on the asteroid, space entrepreneurs are looking at ways to harvest the precious metals within asteroids without getting so close to the objects.
因此，太空企业家们不再考虑直接降落在小行星表面，而是在寻找不离小行星太近即可开采其内部贵金属的方法。
Tethers Unlimited, a company born from the mind of science-fiction-author-turned-researcher R. L. Forward and researcher-turned-science-fiction-writer Rob Hoyt, worked with NASA to design a means of catching asteroids instead of landing on them.
Tethers Unlimited公司的诞生源于科幻小说作家转职研究员的R.L.福沃德（R.L. Forward）与研究员转职科幻小说作家的罗布·霍伊特（Rob Hoyt）。该公司与美国宇航局合作，设计了一种无需直接在表面着陆就能捕获小行星的方法。
The company's satellites were designed to launch a gigantic net at the asteroid and capture it before towing it into Earth's gravity, where smaller satellites would chip the metal away and bring it down to the planet more affordably. The net line is angled to stop the asteroid from tumbling and slow it down — the same way an ice skater might extend her leg to reduce spin speed.
该公司的卫星可向小行星发射一张巨大的网将其捕获，随后拖入地球引力范围，再由小型卫星将金属剥离，并以更经济的方式运回地面。网绳呈特定角度布置，用以阻止小行星翻滚并降低其转速，其原理类似于花样滑冰运动员伸展单腿以减缓旋转速度。
But NASA ended funding for Tethers, so the design wasn't produced in time to capture the mini-moon 2024 PT5. Hassanalian, a researcher at the New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology, takes inspiration from the insect kingdom — with a design that deploys a net in front of an asteroid's path, capturing it in a spiderweb-like mesh.
但NASA终止了对Tether的资助，该设计未能及时研制出来，以捕获迷你月球2024 PT5。新墨西哥矿业与技术学院的研究人员哈桑纳利安从昆虫界汲取灵感：他的设计方案是在小行星运行路径前方部署一张网，以蛛网状网格将其捕获。
Meanwhile, TransAstra's design also involves catching the asteroid instead of landing on it — but it does so using a more powerful tool than its competitors: the sun.
与此同时，TransAstra的方案也同样是不着陆的方法来捕捉小行星，但它使用了比竞争对手更强大的工具：太阳。
TransAstra plans to exploit what it calls "concentrated sunlight" to break up a water-rich asteroid. The company would deploy a giant plastic bag — made out of polyamide — to wrap the asteroid in, which Sercel compared to Mylar aluminum wrap or clingfilm, before using what amounts to a sophisticated magnifying glass to melt away the asteroid (which is mostly ice) and leaving the precious metals behind.
TransAstra计划利用所谓的"集中阳光"来分解富含水分的小行星。该公司将部署一个由聚酰胺制成的巨型塑料袋包裹小行星（瑟塞尔将其比作麦拉铝箔或保鲜膜）随后利用相当于高精度放大镜的装置将小行星（其主要成分为冰）熔化，从而留下贵重金属。
The mini moon is the “perfect size” for such a venture, says Sercel, although the mini moon unfortunately arrived before TransAstra was ready to take advantage of the opportunity. The company's eyes are set on the next celestial visitor, which could arrive anywhere from a year to a decade from now.
瑟塞尔表示，这颗迷你月球对于这种尝试而言堪称“完美尺寸”，只可惜它造访之际，TransAstra尚未做好把握这一机遇的准备。该公司现已将视线锁定在下一位天体访客身上，这位访客可能在未来一年至十年间的任何时候到来。
"It's not like you have the opportunity [to mine a mini-moon] every month," Hoyt, of Tethers Unlimited, told Space.com "You could take a look at parking it in orbit around the Earth, but that would take a lot of propellant. You also need to be very careful you don't drop it on the Earth."
Tethers Unlimited公司的霍伊特在接受Space.com采访时表示：“捕捉迷你月球采矿的机会可不是月月都有，你可以考虑将它停泊在地球轨道上，但这需要消耗大量推进剂。此外还必须格外小心，千万别让它坠落到地球上。"
In 2029, NASA will launch its most ambitious asteroid-exploration mission to date, sending the Psyche probe to map out a metal-rich asteroid with the same name. It could set the stage for the first interstellar industry. The asteroid 16 Psyche is thought to be worth quadrillions of dollars (that's 15 zeros), according to Lindy Elkins-Tanton, the lead scientist on the NASA mission, quoted in Global News.
在2029年，美国宇航局将启动迄今最具雄心的小行星探测任务：派遣"灵神号"（Psyche）探测器前往绘制一颗同名富金属小行星的地图，这可能将为首个星际产业奠定基础。据该NASA任务的首席科学家林迪·埃尔金斯-坦顿（Lindy Elkins-Tanton）在接受环球新闻采访时所述，16号灵神星（16 Psyche）的价值据估计高达千万亿美元（即1后面15个零）。
It could be enough to crash the global economy, depending on how quickly the materials could be transported to Earth. Rare earth suppliers also face a problem familiar to the oil and gas industry: an increase in supply leading to a drop in prices, which makes extraction of raw materials less profitable.
这足以冲击全球经济，具体取决于这些材料能以多快速度运抵地球。稀土供应商还面临着一个油气行业所熟知的难题：供应增加导致价格下跌，进而降低原材料开采的利润。
And it would appear that most companies looking to bag an asteroid aren't successful. Tethers had to close down after its funding ran out and its co-founder Robert Lull Forward, an American physicist and author of 11 novels, passed away.
此外，大多数试图捕获小行星的公司都未能成功。Tethers在资金耗尽后被迫关闭，其联合创始人，美国物理学家兼11部小说的作者罗伯特·卢尔·福沃德也已离世。
Hoyt, the remaining founder, is also turning his hand toward writing a science fiction novel, one where the same devices he worked on for NASA can live on through imagination. For now, without the enormous amount of patient investment needed to make such businesses a reality, that's where most asteroid mining technology will remain.
仅存的创始人霍伊特也开始着手创作一部长篇科幻小说，在书中，那些他曾为NASA研发的设备得以在想象中延续生命。眼下，由于缺乏将此类产业变为现实所需的巨额耐心投资，大多数小行星采矿技术只能停留于此。
