2017-03-30 Thu

Gold has been used to mint coins since ancient times all over the world. Joshua Sokol of The Atlantic talked about the scientific roots of the world’s most desired precious metal. He stated that meteorites containing precious metals like gold collided with Earth almost four billion years ago, a time period termed as late veneer.

A cosmic theory goes that a dying star exploded (supernova), creating so much heat and outward energy that it converted iron present in the supernova into gold and other heavy metals. These metals then became a part of meteors which burst into the galaxy. One of them collided with earth, due to which gold is found on this planet.

The latest theory goes that gold was created when neutron stars collided. Before the neutron stars came together to form a black hole, huge amounts of energy along with gold and other elements was ejected into the galaxy.

The occurrence of Supernovas is more frequent than two neutron stars colliding. But less gold would be thrown out during the occurrence of supernovas. When two neutron stars collide, more concentrated amounts of gold would be released, unlike Supernovas.