Asteroids · 4

Resource & Mining Interest

Real bodies frequently discussed as candidates for future resource use — metal-rich or volatile-rich, and relatively accessible. Inclusion is not a claim that mining is planned or feasible.

16 Psyche
A large metal-rich main-belt asteroid, the destination of NASA's Psyche mission to study a possible exposed planetary core.
CategoryMain beltTypeMetallic (M)Diameter222 kmDiscovered1852
101955 BennuPHA
A small, carbon-rich near-Earth asteroid sampled by OSIRIS-REx, whose material was returned to Earth in 2023.
CategoryNear-EarthTypeCarbonaceous (C)Diameter490 mDiscovered1999
162173 RyuguPHA
A carbonaceous near-Earth asteroid visited by Japan's Hayabusa2, which returned surface and subsurface samples to Earth in 2020.
CategoryNear-EarthTypeCarbonaceous (C)Diameter900 mDiscovered1999
433 Eros
The first near-Earth asteroid discovered and the first to be orbited and landed on — by NASA's NEAR Shoemaker in 2000–2001.
CategoryNear-EarthTypeSilicaceous (S)Diameter≈ 34 × 11 × 11 kmDiscovered1898

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