$5.4 Trillion Asteroid Is Flying By Earth Today
An asteroid said to be worth £3.5 trillion ($5.4 trillion), entitled Asteroid 2011 UW-158, will fly by Earth today (Sunday). The entire event will be streamed live online, thanks to an observatory within the Canary Islands. The asteroid is said to be worth so much thanks to the precious metals buried within, though we have no ability to mine them just yet. In time, perhaps.
An asteroid mining company, Planetary Resources, has had their eye on Asteroid 2011 UW-158 for some time now. According to Daily Mail, the company believes they can acquire 100 million tons of platinum from the core of the asteroid. One day they intend to exploit that.
The massive rock will fly around 1.5 million miles from Earth, which is 30 times closer than any planet in our solar system. Slooh Astronomer, Bob Berman said: “It’s always fun when an asteroid whooshes past our world so the Slooh telescopes will be watching live when asteroid 2011 UW-158 passes 30 times closer to us than the nearest planet, on July 19.“
The asteroid has been dubbed an ‘X-Type’, which means it is made up of mostly metal and is part of a larger asteroid that has broken apart through time.
