Asteroid mining
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Asteroid mining is the hypothetical extraction of materials from asteroids and other minor planets, including near-Earth objects.
Main Asteroid Belt 42 largest asteroids Amor asteroid belt Apollo asteroid belt Aten asteroid belt See also: List of exceptional asteroids
Space elevator Phobos
An astronaut mining an asteroid using a hand drill in the video game Space Engineers.
Illustration of proposed asteroid capture by Keck Institute for Space Studies made for Asteroid Redirect Mission
Near-Earth object
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A near-Earth object (NEO) is any small Solar System body orbiting the Sun whose closest approach to the Sun (perihelion) is less than 1.3 times the Earth–Sun distance. This definition applies to the object's orbit around the Sun, rather than its current position, thus an object with such an orbit is considered an NEO even at times when it is far from making a close approach of Earth. If an NEO's orbit crosses the Earth's orbit, and the object is larger than 140 meters (460 ft) across, it is considered a potentially hazardous object (PHO). Most known PHOs and NEOs are asteroids, but about 0.35% are comets.
Image: Asteroid 2006DP14
Image: The VLT images the very faint Near Earth Object 2009 FD
Image: Comet Hartley 2
Radar image of (388188) 2006 DP14 recorded by a DSN antenna