Cornell University and University of Edinburgh researchers have demonstrated that fungi can successfully extract valuable platinum group elements from meteoritic material under microgravity conditions aboard the International Space Station. Led by Dr. Rosa Santomartino, Assistant Professor of Biological and Environmental Engineering at Cornell, and Professor Charles Cockell, Professor of Astrobiology at Edinburgh, the BioAsteroid experiment found that the fungus Penicillium simplicissimum significantly enhanced palladium extraction while nonbiological leaching became less effective in space. The findings, published in npj Microgravity, suggest that future deep space missions could harvest metals from asteroids using microorganisms rather than heavy mining equipment transported from Earth.
The problem Dr. Santomartino and her colleagues set out to solve is not whether space resources exist—asteroids are known to contain platinum, palladium, iron, and nickel in staggering quantities. The problem is how to extract those resources without launching a mining operation’s worth of machinery from Earth, where every kilogram of payload costs tens of thousands of dollars. If humans intend to establish permanent presence beyond low-Earth orbit, they cannot carry everything they need. They must learn to live off the land.
What the BioAsteroid team built instead is a proof of concept for biological in-situ resource utilization: letting microorganisms do the heavy lifting. The experiment, conducted aboard the ISS by NASA astronaut Michael Scott Hopkins, exposed samples of L-chondrite asteroidal material—a common meteorite type—to two distinct microbial species: the bacterium Sphingomonas desiccabilis and the fungus Penicillium simplicissimum. Parallel control experiments ran simultaneously at Cornell under terrestrial gravity. The researchers then measured extraction rates for 44 elements, of which 18 showed statistically significant biological extraction.
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The basic function of this biomining process is surprisingly elegant. Microbes naturally produce carboxylic acids—carbon-based molecules that attach to mineral surfaces via complexation, essentially prying metal atoms loose from their crystalline prisons. On Earth, this mechanism is well understood and commercially deployed in copper and gold mining. In space, the physics change. Fluid behavior, gas exchange, and nutrient distribution all behave differently when gravity is removed. Whether microbial metabolism would adapt, falter, or accelerate was an open question.
The answer, according to the data, is that it adapts. Dr. Santomartino and co-author Alessandro Stirpe, a research associate in microbiology at Cornell, analyzed the metabolomic profiles of the space-flown microbes and found distinct changes. The fungus Penicillium simplicissimum increased production of many carboxylic acid molecules under microgravity, correlating with enhanced release of palladium, platinum, and other elements. Meanwhile, nonbiological leaching—chemical extraction without living organisms—performed worse in space than on Earth. The microbes did not necessarily outperform their terrestrial counterparts; they simply maintained consistent performance across gravity conditions while the abiotic controls faltered.
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Still, the achievement carries an honest limitation that the researchers themselves emphasize with unusual candor. Dr. Santomartino told Phys.org that the biotechnology community desperately wants a tidy, universal explanation for how space conditions affect microbial biomining. No such explanation exists. “Depending on the microbial species, depending on the space conditions, depending on the method that researchers are using, everything changes,” she said. Bacteria and fungi are too diverse. The space environment is too complex. Each element behaves differently. Each microbe extracts different targets. The experiment generated data, not dogma.
What makes this matter, ultimately, is not that palladium extraction improved by a specific percentage under specific conditions. It is that the experiment worked at all. The BioAsteroid project was, in Dr. Santomartino’s words, “probably the first experiment of its kind on the International Space Station on meteorite.” Conducting controlled biological leaching experiments in orbit requires solving logistical puzzles that would defeat most research programs: sterilizing rock samples, maintaining living cultures during launch, coordinating astronaut time, preserving metabolic activity for return analysis. The team did all of it, and the data resolved.
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The innovator of this experimental approach is Professor Charles Cockell at the University of Edinburgh, whose astrobiology group has long argued that microbiology must be central to space exploration strategy, not an afterthought. But the engineers who made the measurements possible are Dr. Rosa Santomartino, who prepared the samples for launch and led the post-flight analysis, and Alessandro Stirpe, who wrestled the 44-element dataset into statistical coherence. NASA astronaut Michael Hopkins performed the actual ISS operations, injecting fluids into reaction chambers at precisely timed intervals while orbiting 250 miles above Earth. It takes a distributed network of specialists to put a fungus on a meteorite in space.
Reported by Phys.org, the study published in npj Microgravity also revealed something unexpected about the relationship between microbes and nonbiological processes. In several cases, removing the fungus actually worsened extraction efficiency compared to the abiotic controls—a negative effect not observed on Earth. This suggests that even when microbes are not directly leaching metals, their presence may alter local chemistry in ways that facilitate subsequent chemical extraction. The mechanisms remain unclear. The team plans metabolomic deep dives to trace exactly which secondary metabolites are responsible.
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What comes next is the slow, patient work of understanding. Dr. Santomartino is not promising a space biomining industry within a decade. She is not promising that Penicillium simplicissimum will be the organism of choice for asteroid platinum extraction. She is promising to keep asking questions. “We don’t see massive differences, but there are some very interesting ones,” Stirpe said. “Is this just noise, or can we see something that maybe makes a bit of sense?”
For the rest of us, who will never handle a meteorite or calibrate a mass spectrometer, the significance is quieter but no less profound. The first extraterrestrial mining operation in human history may not involve drills, crushers, or smelters. It may involve a petri dish, a pipette, and a fungus that does not know it is in space. The BioAsteroid experiment proved that approach is at least possible. That is enough for now.
