Title:
Asteroid-munching microbes could mine materials from space rocks
Author:
Leah Crane
Published:
NewScientist, 10 November 2020
From the article:
An experiment on the International Space Station (ISS) has shown that microbes can extract valuable or useful elements from rocks in microgravity, suggesting “biomining” might be key to making use of asteroids.
Microbes leach elements out of rocks by releasing compounds that accelerate chemical reactions, such as acids that dissolve the rocks and allow the microbes to consume the elements they need to survive. Charles Cockell at the University of Edinburgh in the UK and his colleagues sent an experiment called BioRock to the ISS last year to investigate whether this would work in the low gravity on the space station.