From Whence Comes Gold?

[hazelm]

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/08/170804131816.htm

 

It is a wealth of information for one who knows little and I'm sure there are people here who know far more.  I just found it interesting - more than interesting, fascinating.

 

Neutron rich material (cold neutron matter) from stars destroyed by tiny black holes early in the history of the universe explains the abundance of heavy elements - the elements heavier than iron.  The next question:  materials used to create gold and other heavy elements had to have come from some source into the stars.  You can't bake a cake without the ingredients.  So, if the stars created these heavy elements, from what did they create them?  Or did the elements already exist from the Big Bang but need a boost - a "pulling together"?  Another thought:  do we trace all the elements back to hydrogen? 

 

Maybe Theodore Gray had something to say about it.  Meanwhile, I hope someone else enjoys these new revelations from Science Daily.

 

 

[Moontanman]

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/08/170804131816.htm

 

It is a wealth of information for one who knows little and I'm sure there are people here who know far more.  I just found it interesting - more than interesting, fascinating.

 

Neutron rich material (cold neutron matter) from stars destroyed by tiny black holes early in the history of the universe explains the abundance of heavy elements - the elements heavier than iron.  The next question:  materials used to create gold and other heavy elements had to have come from some source into the stars.  You can't bake a cake without the ingredients.  So, if the stars created these heavy elements, from what did they create them?  Or did the elements already exist from the Big Bang but need a boost - a "pulling together"?  Another thought:  do we trace all the elements back to hydrogen? 

 

Maybe Theodore Gray had something to say about it.  Meanwhile, I hope someone else enjoys these new revelations from Science Daily.

 

 

Elements heavier than iron were made in supernova explosions. All the elements below iron were formed by fusion of lighter elements starting with hydrogen. 

 

BTW, the reason gold is so rare in the Earths crust is due to it sinking to the core when the earth was molten. It has been estimated that there is enough gold in the core of the earth to pave the entire planet over to a depth of a couple meters... 

Edited August 6, 2017 by Moontanman

[hazelm]

Elements heavier than iron were made in supernova explosions. All the elements below iron were formed by fusion of lighter elements starting with hydrogen. 

 

BTW, the reason gold is so rare in the Earths crust is due to it sinking to the core when the earth was molten. It has been estimated that there is enough gold in the core of the earth to pave the entire planet over to a depth of a couple meters... 

A fusion of lighter elements?  All right.  Do they know which elements were fused into which heavy elements?  Thank you Moontanman.    So, the streets really could be paved with gold.  All the adults in my childhood kept telling us the streets are not paved with gold.   But, they could be.  :xmas_tree:

[JMJones0424]

hazelm - I think you'll find the wikipedia page on nucleosynthesis may help as a starting point.

[hazelm]

hazelm - I think you'll find the wikipedia page on nucleosynthesis may help as a starting point.

Thank you JMJones. I see some helpful details there.   I shall have to read and study it several times for the answers to fall into place.  And the terms!  Sometimes it is just a mater of getting familiar with the terms and how those are used.  

[JMJones0424]

Indeed, the terminology in any new subject area is hard to get used to at first, but it must be this way if you are trying to accurately convey specific concepts.  At least this is physics and not biology, where they prefer to use Latin and Greek in order to appear to be smart philatelists.

 

Based on a few of your question, I really thing you'll enjoy reading the blog Starts With a Bang  Its by an astrophysicist named Ethan Siegel and contains readily accessible explanations of many physics topics.  He also has content on Science Blogs and Medium

 

If you're in to cosmology, Ned Wright's Cosmology Faq and the tutorials on his homepage are good places to start.

Edited August 7, 2017 by JMJones0424

[hazelm]

Thank you again.  I shall get to these.  One nice thing about studying astronomy/cosmology is that we don't have to fly out there.   We can keep our feet solidly on terra firma. 

[TomKalbfus]

Elements heavier than iron were made in supernova explosions. All the elements below iron were formed by fusion of lighter elements starting with hydrogen. 

 

BTW, the reason gold is so rare in the Earths crust is due to it sinking to the core when the earth was molten. It has been estimated that there is enough gold in the core of the earth to pave the entire planet over to a depth of a couple meters... 

You don't want to be around anywhere near where a lot of gold is being made! It is probably easier to obtain gold from a nebula where stars are being formed, before it gets locked away into planets. Gold is four time denser than iron, an object the size of our Moon that was made out ofgold wuld have one full gravity at its surface for about 0.0625 the mass of the Earth in Gold.

[hazelm]

You don't want to be around anywhere near where a lot of gold is being made! It is probably easier to obtain gold from a nebula where stars are being formed, before it gets locked away into planets. Gold is four time denser than iron, an object the size of our Moon that was made out ofgold wuld have one full gravity at its surface for about 0.0625 the mass of the Earth in Gold.

An interesting coincidence that you should post this tonight.  I was just reading earlier the story of how a bit of gold traveled from the iron furnace of a faltering neutron star and, maybe a billion years later, crashed into Earth. and ended up in the gold ring on someone's finger.

Edited October 8, 2017 by hazelm