What are asteroids made of?
What are asteroids made of? Rock, clay, carbon, and metal. A sourced guide to asteroid composition from NASA and JAXA missions and returned samples.
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Research / Public science
What the data says about asteroid resources
Plain-language articles built from primary sources: NASA and JPL survey data, sample-return results, and peer-reviewed papers. Every number links to where it came from.
Near Earth AI is in early research and development. These articles report work by NASA, JAXA, ESA, and USGS, not observations of our own.
Types of asteroids explained: C, S and M, and what each could offer
Types of asteroids explained: how scientists classify C-type, S-type, and M-type asteroids, with Ryugu, Itokawa, Psyche, and Vesta as sourced examples.
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Is asteroid mining possible yet? An honest status check
Is asteroid mining possible yet? A sourced status check on sample returns, failed commercial attempts, open problems, and when asteroid mining could start.
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How many near-Earth asteroids are there, and how many are worth a closer look?
More than 42,000 near-Earth asteroids are known. Filter by size, trajectory cost, and known composition, and the list shrinks fast. A sourced walk through NASA and JPL data.
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What the Bennu and Ryugu samples teach us about asteroid prospecting
OSIRIS-REx and Hayabusa2 studied two asteroids from orbit, then tested those readings against returned samples. Five lessons for anyone thinking about asteroid resources.
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Why survey first: how remote sensing narrows asteroid resource targets
Telescopes, orbiting instruments, and small samples each answer different questions about an asteroid. How the layers fit together, using missions NASA, JAXA, and ESA have flown.
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Survey first
Read about the survey-first concept Near Earth AI is researching.