The most expensive material in the world

Antimatter is the most expensive material in the world at $3.5 x 10 to the 16th power for a gram of antiprotons.

The world's only antimatter factory at CERN. Photo: Business Insider — The world's only antimatter factory at CERN. Photo: *Business Insider*

After a seven-year, nearly 4 billion-mile journey, NASA's OSIRIS-REx spacecraft brought back a 255-gram sample from the asteroid Bennu on September 24, 2023. NASA's mission had an $800 million budget and the final cost was about $1.16 billion for the 255-gram sample. But it's not the most expensive material on the planet, according to Chris Impey, an astronomy professor at the University of Arizona.

Some asteroid samples are worth $4.5 million per gram, about 70,000 times the price of gold, which has been in the $60-$70/gram range for the past few years. The first extraterrestrial material returned to Earth was from the Apollo program. Between 1969 and 1972, six Apollo missions brought back a total of 382 kg of lunar samples. The total cost of the Apollo program (adjusted for inflation) was $257 billion. Moon rocks are worth about $674,000/gram.

NASA plans to return samples from Mars to Earth in the early 2030s to see if they contain traces of ancient life. The Mars Sample Return mission aims to bring 30 sample tubes weighing about 450 grams in total. The Perseverance rover has already stored 10 of them. However, the cost is increasing because the mission is so complex, involving multiple robots and spacecraft. The sample return could cost $11 billion, which works out to $24 million per gram, five times the cost of the Bennu sample.

Some meteorites are inexpensive, with nearly 50 tons of free samples from the solar system raining down on Earth every day. Most burn up in the atmosphere, but if they land on the ground they are called meteorites, and most come from asteroids. Meteorites can be expensive because they are difficult to identify and recover. The rocks all look the same unless they are distinguished by a geologist. Most meteorites are rocks called chondrites, and cost from $0.50 an ounce.

Iron meteorites are distinguished by their dark crusts, which are formed when they melt as they pass through the atmosphere, and by their long metal crystal lattices inside. They are worth $1.77/g or more. Pallasites are iron-rock meteorites with intercalated olivine minerals. When cut and polished, they are transparent yellow-green and can be worth more than $35/g.

Some meteorites have come to Earth from the Moon and Mars. Nearly 600 have been identified as coming from the Moon, and the largest, a 1.8 kg specimen, sells for $166 per gram. About 175 have been identified as coming from Mars. These can fetch around $388 per gram.

Some elements and minerals are expensive because they are rare. The simplest elements on the periodic table are cheap. Carbon costs $2.40 per 100 grams, iron costs less than $0.01, and aluminum costs $0.19. Silver and gold are worth $0.50 per gram and $67 per gram, respectively. Seven radioactive elements are so rare in nature and so difficult to create in the lab that their value far exceeds that of NASA’s Mars Sample Return mission. Polonium-209, the most expensive of these, is worth $49 billion per gram.

Gemstones are also highly valuable. High-quality emeralds are worth 10 times the price of gold, and white diamonds are 100 times more expensive than gold. Some diamonds contain boron impurities, giving them a vivid blue color, and exist in only a few mines in the world and cost $19 million per gram.

The most expensive man-made substance is a tiny spherical carbon “cage” with nitrogen atoms trapped inside. The atoms inside the cage are extremely stable and can be used to keep time. Endohedral fullerenes are made of carbon and are used to make extremely accurate atomic clocks. They cost $141 million per gram.

Antimatter exists in nature, but it is extremely rare because whenever an antiparticle is created, it is quickly annihilated by a particle and produces radiation. The particle accelerator at CERN can create 10 million antiprotons per minute, but at that rate it would take billions of years and a trillion dollars to produce 28 grams of antiparticle, meaning each gram costs 3.5 x 10 to the 16th power of $.

An Khang (According to Science Alert )

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