The Universe Is Chocked Full Of Gold But No One Knows Where It Came From

The universe has an enormous amount of gold and experts have no idea where they came from.

Although alchemists have tried, in vain, for centuries, they have never succeeded in making gold through chemical reactions. The reason here is simple - this yellow metal is an element.

The only way known to science to do so is to bind 118 neutrons and 79 protons together to create one atomic nucleus through a huge nuclear fusion reaction.

However, the mystery of where the gold on Earth and the universe come from remains, as such intense reactions don’t happen frequently enough to make the amount of that precious metal on our planet alone.

Scientists have come up with a number of other theories, one says this metal is the result of the collisions between neutron stars, which also fails to explain the abundance of this element.

Another theory claims the origin of gold is supernova so intense stars are turned inside out. And again, even that can’t explain the amount of this metal in the universe.

According to Chiaki Kobayashi - an astrophysicist in the UK, collisions of neutron stars create this rare element by smashing neutrons and protons together, the result we have is atomic nuclei.

Supernovas can’t be the origin of gold because, firstly, the stars big enough for the reactions are scarce; and secondly, these stars usually become black holes and will suck all of the newly-created precious metal into them.

About the intense supernovas that turn stars inside out, or you may know them under the name magneto-rotational supernova, this kind of incident is too rare to be the main source of gold.

During such an event, a star spins so fast it’s taken apart by strong magnetic fields. And As it explodes, its inside - which is full of gold, is shot into space. However, stars that have this element in its heart is rare, and magneto-rotational supernovas are even rarer.

Even if we theorize that both magneto-rotational supernovas and neutron stars are the origin of the metal, it still can’t explain the amount of the element on Earth.

According to Kobayashi, it’s true neutron star collisions can create lots of gold. But the rarity of these events means they can hardly create the bonanza of that element in the universe. Scientists have seen such an event happened only once. 

Something must be creating this precious metal and we have no idea what it is. A possibility is neutron star collisions spew out more gold than we expect. Either way, scientists still have lots of work to do to know exactly the source of gold in our universe.

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