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Long-term plans are now being developed to mine asteroids for valuable materials during space missions. In this activity students will create an asteroid mining corporation and develop a scientific plan to find the best asteroid that is worth mining for their mission. They will use astronomical databases containing true research and scientific data (like the orbital parameters, spectraand the chemical compositions of asteroids). With this activity students will learn how to recognize small bodies in our solar system, understand properties of asteroids and how to use astronomical data through an inquiry based learning approach.NOTE: This activity was proposed by NAEC Team Türkiye within the Sabir co-design project developed by the OAE Center Italy (Milan, 2-6 September 2024). For more information: link to OAE Center Italy webpage dedicated to the project.
What are asteroids?
Giuseppe Piazzi discovered the first asteroid on January 1, 1801. Piazzi gave it the name Ceres, after the harvest goddess from Sicily. Every year thousands more are discovered. The largest known asteroid is Ceres. Asteroids can have irregular shapes and range in size from being as small as a dust particle to having a diameter of 945 kilometers. Even if you combine the mass of all known asteroids, it would still be less than that of the Moon. It is believed that asteroids are the remnants of the inner planets' formation.
The majority of asteroids orbit the Sun between Mars and Jupiter's orbits. We refer to this region as the asteroid belt.
One of the primary causes of the extinction of the dinosaurs is believed to have been an asteroid impacting Earth approximately 66 million years ago. The likelihood of an asteroid striking our planet is quite low but scientists are monitoring asteroids to prevent this possibility.
Asteroids categorization
Asteroids are classified into several categories based on their chemical composition, identified by their "spectral type".
Another way to classify asteroids is according to where they are in the solar system. To understand where an asteroid orbits in the solar system, it is important to know its' orbital parameters.
For more information about the types of asteroids, their spectra and how they are related to their composition, and finally their orbital parameters, refer to the Teacher_Background.pdf in attachment.
For more information about asteroids, you can also visit: https://www.nisenet.org/asteroids
In this activity students can work in groups or individually. Each group should have access to a computer/tablet with an internet connection and should have access to the Student-Asteroid_sheet.doc (printed or digital) where they will write the results of their analysis. The teacher will find in the attachements a Teacher-Asteroid_sheet.pdf where he/she can find all the results of the activity.
During the activity, the students will first be introduced to the activity (Step 1-introduction), they will then choose the scientific plan for their company from 4 plans provided (Step 2-Definition of the mission task). Then they will be provided with a set of 15 different asteroids (Step 3-presenting the 15 possibile asteroids). For each of these 15 asteroids they should investigate the orbital parameters (Step 4 -Identify the orbit), determine the spectral type (Step 5-Identify the spectra) and identify the chemical composition from their spectra (6-Identify the chemical composition). Then in a final session (7-Conclusion) students will choose the best asteroids that suit their initial purpose, according to all the information they collected.
The activity is presented in a modular form, where each student/group is invited to investigate all the 15 asteroids and to go through all the steps described above, for a duration of 3-6 hours. Please be aware that if you have limited time or a limited number of computers or a crowded classroom, the activity can be done in a simpler form: some steps of the activity can be simplified (see Step 5) and the tasks can be distributed over the classroom, asking each group of students to analyze a single asteroid and share the results with the others at the end of the session, for a global discussion (Step 7).
Introduce the students to the activity where they will develop a scientific plan for an asteroid mining corporation. Ask some questions for an open discussion and engaging students to the topic. What is called an asteroid? What are asteroids made of? What can asteroids be used for? Give some basic information about asteroids (types, sizes, distribution in space, chemical compositions etc.).There are two important parameters to be introduced in this activity: distance (measured by orbital parameters) and composition (defined by the spectral type) of asteroids.
Ask the students if they ever heard of a real asteroid mining project? How long do you think it takes?
You can talk about the Hayabusa project and the Rosetta Mission.
Give students a task to design a scientific plan for an asteroid mining corporation and ask them to find the best asteroid that is worth mining for their mission, in an optimistic project time.
You can choose a plan from the 4 below (you can also provide the 4 plans to the students and let them choose one):
No: 1
Purpose: Find nearby valuable materialsThe plan might focus on nearby asteroids for valuable metals like platinum and then return the metals to Earth for sale.Distance of target asteroid: Near EarthComposition of target asteroid: Metal rich
No: 2
Purpose: find raw materials to colonize MarsThe plan might aim to mine raw materials for constructing a space station or a colony on Mars by focusing on iron-rich asteroids in the inner solar system.Distance of target asteroid: Near MarsComposition of target asteroid: Metal rich
No: 3
Purpose: find rocket FuelThe plan might focus on mining asteroids near the outer border of the asteroid belt for materials that can be converted into rocket fuel. This might create a refuelling station for spacecraft heading toward the outer solar system.Distance of target asteroid: beyond Mars, farComposition of target asteroid: Metal poor
No: 4
Purpose: find water for astronautsYou may extract water to supply astronauts on extended space trips with drinking water.Distance of target asteroid: near EarthComposition of target asteroid: water rich
Students will then be given a set of 15 asteroids and they will be asked to collect scientific information about all of them, making it possibile to choose the best target for their mission.
List of possible asteroids:
In the next sessions, students will be asked to find different information about these 15 asteroids, writing them in the Student_Asteroid_sheet. At the end of the analysis, they will be asked to choose the best asteroid/asteroids that suit for their mission.
Start identifying the properties of the 15 possible target asteroids using JPL Small Body database that contains information about all known asteroids. Students can identify basic parameters at https://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/tools/sbdb_lookup.html#/ and use the orbit viewer to see the orbit of the asteroids and their distances to Earth.
Ask students which parameters would be necessary for their purposes? Give them 10 min to figure out themselves, recording the necessary information for each asteroid on the Student_Asteroid_Sheet.doc
Image 1: Small Body Database Lookup results (left) and orbit viewer (right)
Students are asked to find the spectra of the 15 asteroids using the Ferret web application within Planetary Data System hosted by the Planetary Science Institute. (https://sbn.psi.edu/pds/ferret/).
They should go to https://sbnapps.psi.edu/ferret/ and find data by target name just by entering the name of the asteroids as the target name one by one. (write the name or the number of the asteroid then push search button not enter!).They can look up the 15 asteroids and download their spectral data. You can find an example of a spectrum in Image 2.
Image 2: Small Bodies Data Ferret web application (left) and spectrum of an asteroid on Small Bodies Data Ferret web application (right)
In the attachements, we are also providing the spectral data for all the 15 asteroids: students can download on their computer the asteroids.zip folder where they will find for each of the 15 asteroids a spectrum (png) and a data file (.dat) that you will use in the following steps.
Next step is determining the spectral type of the asteroids and identifying the minerals in their spectra from M4AST website https://spectre.imcce.fr/m4ast/index.php/index/home. M4AST (Modeling for Asteroids) is a free on-line tool for modeling reflectance visible and near-ir spectra of atmosphereless bodies.
Students start by uploading the spectrum downloaded from PDS Ferret web application (or in alternative in the Asteroids.zip folder).Be sure about your wavelength unit, use the same unit in the spectrum. Once the upload is successful, they can view the file in the green area.
Image 3: successful upload of a spectrum on M4AST web tool.
Now the analysis phase of the activity can start: students first plot the spectrum choosing the tool from the left menu. In the plotted graphic spectra, the blue curve represents the best fitting model for the real spectrum (in red).
Image 4: plot spectrum on M4AST web tool
Then they will use the taxonomy classification tool from the left menu to see the best approaches and determine the spectral type of asteroids. They can choose Bus-DeMeo method to see which spectral type fits most.
Image 5: Spectral type (Taxonomy) classification on M4AST web tool.
They should choose the curve that best fits with the red and blue data. This will give the best estimate for the spectral type of the asteroid (usually the first line in the table). Here the students may refer to the table about spectral type of asteroids in the background information sheet in case they find the spectral type as a subtype like A or E etc.
Image 6: Comparison with Relab Database on M4AST web tool.
Then students will use the comparison with Relab database tool to compare the asteroid spectrum with the laboratory spectra of some minerals. This might take a few minutes to complete on the web tool and give a preliminary result for the chemical composition of an asteroid.
Image 7: Results of comparison with Relab Database on M4AST web tool, minerals list.
The students should record the spectral types and minerals for each asteroid on the spreadsheet.
Analysing the collected data and information of the 15 possible target asteroids, students should decide which asteroid is best for their scientific plan, depending on their distance and the types of minerals they are made of (metals etc.). They should then choose which asteroid is worth mining according to their plan and explain why, sharing their results and commenting them.
In this phase, the teacher can check the results and guide the discussion using the Teacher_asteroid_sheet.pdf table.
Students can also be asked to make a presentation of their scientific plan for asteroid mining and share their plan and research with their friends and the teacher. Which asteroid/s is/are worth mining?
You may collect the final presentations from the students.
You may apply pre and post questionaries about what they know about the concepts in the activity, questions about each step of inquiry-based learning, ask which steps they used. Students can also do a flow chart in which order they used these steps.
You may ask open questions about what they have learned.
You can find a quiz on asteroids in the attachments.
