“Mars has just enough atmosphere that you can’t discount it, but not enough to actually give you a significant amount of aerobraking,” she said, referring to using a planet’s atmosphere to slow an incoming spacecraft.

In a new study, scientists propose using a technique called aerobraking to slow small asteroids enough that they don’t just shoot straight past Earth, but stay in orbit, where they could be mined for platinum or water.

The study involves aerobraking, or using the drag created by Earth’s atmosphere to slow down the path of an incoming object.

Aerobraking isn’t new—every incoming spacecraft to Earth uses it to slow itself down before landing, and probes to other planets, such as the European Space Agency’s Venus Express and ExoMars missions, have also used the technique.

In the new paper, Tan and colleagues propose using aerobraking to slow small asteroids enough that they don’t just shoot straight past Earth, but stay in orbit, where they could be mined for platinum or water.