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The possibility of space mining in future was thrown into sharp relief this weekend as a Near Earth Asteroid (NEA) called 4,660 Nereus passed our planet.
Worth an estimated $5 billion in precious metals and measuring 330 meters across, Nereus at no point came anywhere near being dangerous, getting no closer than 2.4 million miles/3.9 million kilometers at 13:51 UTC on Saturday, December 11, 2021.
That’s about 10 times the distance between the Earth and the Moon.
So why so much attention on Nereus?
There seemed to be a lot of misunderstanding about how dangerous—or otherwise—Nereus could be to Earth.