Wendy Zukerman

All over the globe, we're finding these elements.

Even though they're called rare earth elements, they're actually not that rare.

And curiously, there isn't even that much of this stuff on the moon.

We know from satellite data that there's a bit of a hotspot of rare earths which happens to be on the right eye of the man in the moon.

But even there, the elements aren't just sitting there like a big nugget of gold.

They're diluted, mixed up with the moon dirt, and would be hard to mine.

Let me give you an analogy.

Probably one of the driest place on earth.

You're looking for droplets.

Wow.

This sounds really a bad idea.

At this point, it is.

So it's sounding like we should probably work out ways to mine rare earths safely here on Earth and even get better at recycling the stuff on our phones before we resort to all the hassle and expense of going to the moon for these elements.

Now, there is another idea that's been making the rounds on the web and in science fiction.

And it's that the real treasure on the moon is this thing called helium-3.

One Apollo astronaut has called it, quote, the best reason to return to the moon in the 21st century.

End quote.

Helium-3 is a version of helium that people say could be used as fuel for clean nuclear energy.

That means no harmful radioactive waste.

But we'd still get all this great power.