Posted: Jun 11, 2018 6:10 pm
newolder wrote:The population of asteroids is large and with few exceptions all had a similar origin in the Solar system's proto-disk. There's a predominantly ice/rock differential out there but I don't yet know the composition of Ryugu. There's a slim to vanishing chance that Ryugu is a single elemental block of gold, silver, platinum or other from an earlier neutron star merger or supernova blast, covered in dust. Who knows until the probe gets there and does its stuff?
If we are running a sweep, I'll have a euro that any successful return will comprise dusty rock with a hint of tardigrades/aliens.
What's a sweep, a sweepstakes?
The asteroids virtually all share a common origin, and there is what one might expect to be a one in a million chance of hitting on something truly unique, but they've been separate from each other for billions of years.
So maybe it's only a one in a thousand chance of being interestingly unique, by this point. I wasn't even thinking of precious metals, more like "precious" chemistry, or some other random cool thing. Mark my bet down for no tardigrades though.
