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6489 Golevka 0.60 x 1.40 x 0.53 km 21 million tons 2.70 g/cc Alinda Asteroid (4 year resonance) Earth Mars Crossing

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433 Eros 34.4 x 11.2 x 11.2 km 6.69 Trillion Tons 2.67 g/cc Armor Asteroid (4 year resonance) Earth Mars Crossing

The Apollo, Alinda and Armor Asteroids exhibit a resonance with Jupiter!s and Earth!s orbit and so return to Earth regularly every four years without fail. The largest of these is Eros which was visited by the Shoemaker spacecraft. Many have been observed and characterized. Since their approach is associated with meteor showers and those meteors have been analyzed chemically, we know a great deal about their chemistry already. It is important to know that many platinum metal mines already found on Earth are associated with meteor impact events. So, in a very real way we already mine asteroids that have fallen to Earth. Eros is larger than Manhattan and is 191,000 times larger than Itokawa. Eros contains 168.9 million tons (4.46 trillion ounces) of Platinum among other metals. Enough to give every man woman and child on Earth 637 pure platinum coins which would be valued today at nearly $1 million.

William Mook Copyright 2012