00:00If I ask you what was the most expensive material known to man, you might say something like
00:08diamonds, but that's not the most costly, not by a staggering long shot, and especially
00:14not to scientists.
00:15Often the most precious materials come from space, for instance the rock and mineral samples
00:19that were recently brought back from the asteroid Bennu.
00:22That mission's total expenditure is expected to pass 1.16 billion dollars, and they only
00:27brought back 9 ounces of asteroid samples.
00:29According to professor of astronomy Chris Impey, that brings the total to 132 million
00:34dollars per ounce, or roughly 70,000 times the price of gold.
00:39That's not even close to the most expensive material known to humankind.
00:42The astronomy professor explains that the most costly material is antimatter.
00:47Antimatter occurs naturally, but only exists for fleeting moments, as antiparticles quickly
00:51meet particles and turn into radiation.
00:53However, particle accelerators can produce it, but if you want to create a single ounce
00:57of them, it would take billions of years, meaning one ounce would require the machine
01:02to be on for that time, at a cost of around a billion billion dollars.
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