Asteroid 2022 OB5 Spins Too Fast For Current Prospectors Highlighting the Divide Between “Accessible” and “Exploitable”

Artist's concept of OSIRIS-Rex Mission to asteroid Bennu. Credit - NASA/Goddard/Chris Meaney

Asteroid mining seems simple in theory. A spacecraft flies up to a giant rock in space, scoops out some material, and either processes it on site or returns it back to a huge central processing facility. But in practice, it is certainly not that simple, and a new paper from some Spanish researchers, available in pre-print form on arXiv, showcases one of the reasons why – many small asteroids are spinning ridiculously fast.

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