back to article Dwarfworld PLUTO may not have a real DOG on it - but it does have a TAIL

Dwarf planet Pluto has a "tail", according to the latest information from the New Horizons probe - a plasma tail caused by the solar wind. New Horizons carries a tool called the Solar Wind Around Pluto (SWAP) instrument that, as the craft swung behind Pluto last week, was asked to sniff around for signs of charged particles …

  1. Mark 85

    Astroid with 90 million tons of platinum..

    I'm sure that if we had snagged it, the price of platinum would now be somewhere close to the "free for the taking" zone. Maybe next time around....

    1. Arthur the cat Silver badge

      Re: Astroid with 90 million tons of platinum..

      "I'm sure that if we had snagged it, the price of platinum would now be somewhere close to the "free for the taking" zone."

      Paging Tim Worstall.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Astroid with 90 million tons of platinum..

      good point! I just looked it up and currently worldwide 'production' of platinum is a staggering low, only about 200 tons a year.

      1. DropBear
        Trollface

        Re: Astroid with 90 million tons of platinum..

        I think I would be perfectly content though to have 201 tons of production next year - likely not changing prices in any significant way - assuming the value of that +1 ton would be pocketed by me...

      2. Loyal Commenter Silver badge

        Re: Astroid with 90 million tons of platinum..

        I just looked it up and currently worldwide 'production' of platinum is a staggering low, only about 200 tons a year.

        Because of its terrestrial rarity, there are few large-scale uses for platinum. It has industrial uses as a chemical catalyst in the reduction of alkenes amongst other things (it's the main 'ingredient' in a car's catalytic converter, which apparently accounts for the largest portion of the global production). As a catalyst, it is not needed in large quantities, and isn't consumed (although catalysts can be 'poisoned' by chemical impurities in the reaction mix, requiring them to be periodically removed and re-purified). It has the 'ooh-shiny' factor associated with rare metals and brightly coloured minerals that makes it valuable for jewellery. There are a handful of other industrial and medical uses (cis-platin is a platinum containing chemotherapy drug).

        What effect would a 90 million tonne glut in the worldwide market have? Firstly, it would piss off all those people who thought they were being clever by investing in platinum. A bunch of people would find their expensive wedding rings were suddenly worth no more than something made of base metal, and industry would rejoice. Industrial applications that would previously have been considered impractically expensive could be exploited. University chemistry departments and industrial research outfits could buy the metal in bulk and find new uses for it (it is a very efficient catalyst for a number of processes after all). Platinum-based alloys would become financially practical; these may have interesting chemical or physical properties, such as superconductivity.

        1. Fink-Nottle

          Re: Astroid with 90 million tons of platinum..

          > Because of its terrestrial rarity, there are few large-scale uses for platinum. It has industrial uses as a chemical catalyst ...

          Also used on posh rabbit hutches. There's the possibly apocryphal story of the plant worker who sheepishly owned up to 'liberating' a sheet of gauze from work for his daugter's rabbit hutch, after he discovered a VERY expensive platinum catalyst had gone missing.

        2. Dan Paul

          Re: Astroid with 90 million tons of platinum..

          Loyal Commenter,

          You forget to mention that Platinum is used as a catalyst in Automobile "catalytic convertors" and in fuel or plastics manufacture..

          At the moment it is expensive enough to warrant stealing the converters from under your car for the Pt metal content.

          At a 90 million ton glut there would be enough to economically make tractor trailer size catalytic convertors for power plants and refining plants.

          Seems to be enough reasons for Elon Musk to get into the asteroid mining business.

    3. Tom 7

      Re: Astroid with 90 million tons of platinum..

      Free for the taking - until it ended up in speaker cable!

    4. Trevor_Pott Gold badge

      Re: Astroid with 90 million tons of platinum..

      If we'd snagged it we'd be finding all sorts of interesting new uses for platinum. The price wouldn't tank entirely, but it might go down by half. Which is fine. Asteroid mining is viable to even a quarter of current prices. You can also control the price of platinum by varying the return rate.

      Also: why return it all? Platinum is really useful in space, and that asteroid will have lots of Silicon. Make high-value parts (like highly efficient solar panels) in-situ instead of lifting them from Earth. Platinum helps with all sorts of high-tech gadgets and given the density is kind of expensive to drag out of our gravity well.

  2. tempemeaty
    Happy

    How about two tails?

    Pluto is a tale of another tail. =P

    Pictures of Comet "PanSTARRS" I've just seen on twitter, look like it has two tails! (^.^)/

    Now it's also time to remember "Ceres". It's unusual hyper-bright glowing spot is not ice!

  3. Andrew Bolton

    Somebody has their sums wrong

    Don't know if it's El Reg or somewhere else, but 400x1000m = 400,000m3. Density of platinum is ~21t/m3. So if it was PURE platinum, there might be ~9m tons of it, not 90m. And it's fairly unlikely to be pure. Not looked up any other sources on this, so don't know who's made the mistake.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Somebody has their sums wrong

      And the answer is you. 400x1000m = 400,000m2, not m3, so you're ignoring the 3rd dimension.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Somebody has their sums wrong

      @Andrew Bolton - you;ve assumed it was 400x1000x1m - if it was 400x400x1000m that's 160,000,000m3. As it's egg-shaped, it's maybe half of that, say roughly 80-100 million cubic metres. Which, if it was water would be about the same number of tons, and rock's about three to five times denser, I think? 90 million tons still seems like a lot, to me, but not utterly unfeasible, I'd've thought.

      1. Andrew Bolton

        Re: Somebody has their sums wrong

        Oops, yes, my mistake. Too early on a Monday morning.

        Density of platinum is 21 times that of water - it's the 3rd densest element. Still talking ~5%/vol of platinum in the rock, which considering the richest deposits on earth are at about 0.5ppm, is quite impressive/doubtful. My scepticism of the calculation still stands :).

        1. Geoff May
          Joke

          Re: it's the 3rd densest element

          And the second most dense are my neighbours on my left and the most dense are those on the right.

          1. John Brown (no body) Silver badge
            Coat

            Re: it's the 3rd densest element

            "And the second most dense are my neighbours on my left and the most dense are those on the right."

            <sings>And I'm stuck in the middle with you</sings>

            1. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

              Re: it's the 3rd densest element

              Hah! I just realised that single sold over a million so was a platinum seller.

              (Ok, ok, it was my wife who pointed it out)

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Somebody has their sums wrong

        The volume of an ellipsoid 1000x400x400 (at extents) is 83,775,804 m3.

        Density of platinum is 21 times that of water so 90 million tons from 83 million m3 of asteroid seems feasible

  4. Pascal Monett Silver badge
    Coat

    So, Pluto has a waggy tail

    And now SWAP is sniffing at it.

    That's enough you two ! Somebody get a pail of water !

  5. Len Goddard

    It will last a long time

    According to wikipedia, platinum usage in 2010 was 245 tons. So 90m tons would be 360,000 years reserve.

    More to the point, at $1000/oz platinum would be worth ~$36m / ton and in round terms the annual value of platinum used (2010 rate) would be ~ $9 billion. This is not a lot of money to fund the effort needed to bring the stuff back even if you assume that you supply the world demand at current prices. Given that platinum is more or less a waste product from the mining of other bulk metals the cost of terrestrial sourced metal could drop a long way in the face of competition.

    I'm not convinced it makes any economic sense to think about mining asteroids like this unless we are there already for something significantly more valuable.

    1. Alan Brown Silver badge

      Re: It will last a long time

      "More to the point, at $1000/oz platinum would be worth ~$36m / ton and in round terms the annual value of platinum used (2010 rate) would be ~ $9 billion"

      More to the point, current recovery cost of platinum is about $550/oz, so there's quite a bit of room for the market price to fall.

      Only a small %age of platinum is a sidestream product, 75% of it comes from a 3 foot thick igneous layer under northern South Africa, most of the rest is alluvially recovered downstream of the Urals (there's clearly a motherlode somewhere but if it's been located, this is a russian state secret)

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: 90m tons would be ...

      ... quite tricky to slow down?

      1. Hollerith 1

        Re: 90m tons would be ...

        Do the reverse of the little nudging rockets proposed to divert in-coming, earth-aimed asteroids: just get one or two to deflect it to a tighter orbit and slowly reel it in, perhaps with another nudger or two. You would have to wait a few years while it circled in and you could finally get it in orbit around earth. The big fun would be cracking it open to scoop out the platinumy goodness within.

  6. frank ly

    I wonder .....

    If an asteroid mining space mission met another asteroid mining space mission and had a fight over the asteroid in space, resulting in damage and casualties, which (if any) laws would apply?

    1. tony2heads

      Re: I wonder .....

      Wild West law: whoever has the most weapons

    2. John Brown (no body) Silver badge
      Coat

      Re: I wonder .....

      "which (if any) laws would apply?"

      That would be Greedos Law aka The Who Shot First Law.

      1. Destroy All Monsters Silver badge
        Trollface

        Re: I wonder .....

        We're Jews out in space

        We're zooming along

        protecting the Hebrew race

        We're Jews out in space

        If trouble appears

        we put it right back in its place

        When goyim attack us

        We give 'em a smack

        we'll slap them right back in the face

        We're Jews out in space

        We're zooming along

        protecting the Hebrew race

  7. Curious

    Sounds that it would be of more value put into service as bulk radiation shielding for a habitable structure, Dense, corrosion resistant, fairly low toxicity, and could mop up stray hydrogen.

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    If only it had hit the Earth

    Whilst it would it have created a worldwide devastating loss of life, at least everyone left would have been able to afford a platinum novelty keychain to commemorate the event.

    1. Evil Auditor Silver badge
      Thumb Up

      Re: If only it had hit the Earth

      @AC

      Daft comment. I like it!

  9. Ugotta B. Kiddingme
    Joke

    The egg-shaped object...

    90 million tons? That must be the one carrying Jonathan Winters. Robin Williams was a bit lighter.

    Sadly, BOTH of these brilliant comedians have passed from this plane of existence and we are the worse for it.

  10. Camilla Smythe

    Uhm...

    Excuse me.. but where does the article mention Platinum. Honest I read it and there is no mention of Platinum. What are all these comments about Platinum about?

  11. Anonymous Coward
    Go

    Awooga, awooga, thread adrift alert!

    Looks like the forum threads have gotten attached to the wrong articles in some cases. There was an article about a vaguely egg-shaped asteroid said to contain rather an extraordinary amount of platinum, to which this thread was linked. I've just looked for the article and couldn't find it. No great loss as it didn't give any details or links to details as to why it was thought to contain so much platinum, which would've made it more interesting.

    So, here we all are, stranded on this platinum-rich asteroid. Anyone like a toffee? Hey, what's that shiny blue dot up ahead?

  12. Adnan Al Shawafi

    Adnan Alshawafi : Is Pluto completely spherical

    Is Pluto completely spherical. ....

    NASA :(( The new range is just west of the region within Pluto’s heart called Sputnik Planum (Sputnik Plain). The peaks lie some 68 miles (110 kilometers) northwest of Norgay Montes ))

    At the same time NASA say" Pluto spherically Despite all those in surface that does not proportion to its size .

    "But we don't believe Pluto spherical because NASA wanted it spherical "

    Do?????? NASA hide a lot about Pluto's surface details to prove Pluto is spherical to achieve spherical condition of IAU for returning it the ninth planet

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