Space Mining Goes Bio, With Fungi Feasting on Asteroids
The BioAsteroid Project Shows that Biomining in Space is Scientifically Viable
In a newt profound advance for the future of space exploration, scientists have shown that microbes can extract valuable metals from meteorite material while floating in microgravity aboard the International Space Station. The experiment, called BioAsteroid, was led by researchers from Cornell University and the University of Edinburgh. They placed crushed fragments of an L-chondrite meteorite — a close analog for asteroid rock — in small bioreactors and introduced two common soil microbes: the bacterium Sphingomonas desiccabilis and the fungus Penicillium simplicissimum.
The goal of this research was to see whether biological leaching, a process already used on Earth to mine copper and gold, could work in the weightless environment of space.The results, published this month, were striking. The fungus, in particular, leached out palladium — a platinum-group metal critical for catalytic converters and electronics — more effectively in microgravity than in Earth-based controls. Of 44 elements analyzed, 18 were mobilized by the microbes.
The finding builds on earlier ISS experiments that demonstrated biomining on basalt, a rock similar to lunar and Martian surfaces. But using meteorite material brings the concept closer to asteroid mining, where platinum-group metals could one day be harvested to supply Earth or support lunar bases without the enormous cost of launching refined materials from the planet.
The implications are long-term but far-reaching.
Traditional asteroid mining would require heavy machinery, crushing equipment and vast energy. Biomining, by contrast, is lightweight, low-energy and potentially self-sustaining: microbes could be grown on-site using minimal resources. If scaled, the technique might help make deep-space missions less dependent on Earth resupply.
The work is still early-stage. No one is suggesting microbes will soon be deployed on asteroids. Yet, the experiment offers a glimpse of a future in which biology, not just engineering, helps humanity live and work beyond Earth.