[Lewis Thomson (OP)]

Jane would like to know the science of if this situation would be possible.

"Could an asteroid be "captured" and gently lowered down onto the middle of the Australian continent, to create an artificial mountain, the height of which would be high enough to attract clouds to shed moisture/rainfall in the center of the Australian continent? Even if this were possible, would the costs be inhibitive?"

What do you think? Tell us in the comments below...

[chiralSPO]

"would the costs be prohibitive?" absolutely, yes.

It would be significantly cheaper to build the mountain out of sand/rock from elsewhere on earth.

It is currently a technological feat to gently lower a space shuttle or rocket booster from orbit to the ground. You are asking about an object millions of times more massive (which also wasn't built specifically for re-entry). Any attempt at this would likely kill a significant portion of life on earth (I would call that prohibitively expensive).

I'm also not so sure that installing mountain in the middle of the continent would increases rainfall, though I am no expert in meteorology (pun intended).

[Bored chemist]

It's very roughly as expensive to get something down from orbit as it is to get it into orbit.
And it is roughly as expensive to get something in to orbit as to get the same weight in gold.

So (give or take the impact on the gold price if you tried it), the plan would cost about the same as making the mountain from gold.

would the costs be inhibitive

Yes.