Astronomy and Age of Precious Metals on Earth

[ErnieM]

Precious metals like gold are believed to have come from only one source, exploding stars. Planet Earth is believed to be 4.5 billion years old. Does this mean all the gold on earth and the moon and the rest of the solar system are the same age and much older than the earth? Maybe as old or even older than the sun? What other elements fall under this "category"?

How much precious metals is out Moon? With lower gravity, robotic mining for precious metals is a good possibility in the near future. Who own the right to these precious metals in the Moon?

[BDanielMayfield]

The whole solar system from the sun clear out to the farthest comets are believed on good evidence to have formed together, as you said, about 4.5 bya. Our Moon is thought to have had its start a little (30 to 50 million years) later when a Mars sized body is thought to have collided with the then Venus sized Earth. This gigantic collision would have melted both planets, and most of the heavier elements from both bodies would have ended up inside the Earth. Therefore the crust of the Moon is a very unlikely place to prospect for gold Ernie. But lighter elements like silicon and aluminium are abundant in the Moon's crust. I hope and actually expect that someday the moon's resources can be mined and used for building things like probes and super sized telescopes for expanding our reach into space.

A much more promising area to prospect for precious metals are the asteroids. Much of the heavier elements in the earth's crust today are thought to have come from asteroids that hit the earth after the Earth had cooled off from the great impact that formed the Moon. Some companies are actually tooling up to start this endeavour right now. (At least, looking for likely asteroids to investigate for mining potential.) Here's a story from Sky and Telescope about that, with an interview of a lawyer about legal implications: http://www.skyandtelescope.com/communit ... 38361.html

But, were did the gold come from in the first place? That's a much longer story ...

[BDanielMayfield]

Much of what you are asking about Ernie has to do with the science of Nuclear Astrophysics. A book I’ve enjoyed on this subject is Caldrons in the Cosmos - Nuclear Astrophysics. I can remember seeing a chart of the periodic table of the elements on the wall of a classroom back in elementary school and wondering what it meant. After learning what the chart represented I wondered, ‘How were all of these elements made?’ The answer my parents gave was ‘God made them.’ As a child I accepted that answer but I wasn’t content to just to stop there; I also wanted to know HOW they were made. The science of Nuclear Astrophysics has given me satisfying answers.

As you may already know the three lightest elements hydrogen, helium and lithium were forged in the Big Bang itself, about 13.8 billion years ago. Naturally occurring elements above these (collectively called “metals” in astronomy/astrophysicists) were almost all fused in stars, so nearly all metals heavier than Li were formed in stars or in stellar explosions, and these explosions propel these elements back into space.

Most of the stars are in what’s called “the Main Sequence.” These stars are still fusing H into He. As you may know, the more massive the star, the hotter it is (especially at its core) and so the faster it will fuse elements. The lowest massed red dwarf stars burn H so slowly that they will stay in the main sequence for more than a trillion years. Larger yellow dwarf stars like our sun start off with around 10 billion years worth of H, so even though our sun converts H into He at the rate of 620 million metric tons per second it still has enough H to stay on the main sequence for billions of years to come. The most massive stars can burn through their initial supply of H in less than a million years.

After a star has converted all the H in its core to He gravitational contraction will heat the core to the point where three He atoms be fused into carbon. This can’t happen in all stars though because the heavier the atoms become the more force (heat) is required for fusion reactions to occur. But even in stars of the sun’s mass there are C atoms that were produced in earlier generations of stars, and these sometimes fuse with H to form nitrogen, and then N fuses with H to yield oxygen, but the O formed by this reaction is unstable and it decays back to N, which when hit by a proton fissions (splits) back into C and He. In many stars more massive than the Sun this CNO cycle is the main way H is converted into He, using C as a catalyst.

In these more massive stars stable O can be produced by the C + He reaction. Fluorine is made by the N + He and the O + H reactions. Neon is made by the O + He, the F + H and the C + C reactions. Ne + H forms Sodium(Na). From Na, Magnesium, Aluminum and Silicon can be formed if the temps are hot enough. Na and Mg are also formed by combining two carbons. As heavier ions build up in the core (if the star is massive enough) fusion reactions like C + O, C + Ne, and O + O occur, creating Si, Phosphorus and Sulfur.

In really massive stars Si will build up in the core due to a process called photodisintegration. This process will cause S to split back into Si and He. At great temperatures of around 1 billion degrees Kelvin photons (gamma rays) can actually split atoms, leading to reactions that work in both directions, such as photon + S <> Si + He. In this Silicon burning phase photons will knock He particles loose, but these will be quickly reabsorbed by other nuclei. Therefore this progression (among others) will occur: Si + He <> S + photon, S + He <> Argon + photon, Ar + He <> Calcium + photon, Ca + He <> Titanium + photon, Ti + He <> Chromium + photon, Cr + He <> Iron + photon, and finally Fe + He <> Nickel + photon.

Up until the Fe + He to Ni case these nuclear fusion reactions produce more energy than what is required to cause them, but at this point that is no longer true. This results in a core collapse, because the fusion of the elements beyond iron is an energy drain and the star can no longer hold itself up against the crush of gravity. The core implodes, and the star explodes in a Supernova. But prior to the blast the star has become like a layer cake with shells of heaver and heavier elements toward its interior. But this cake has baked as long as it can and now some of the Fe, Ni and many other elements from the core are shot up with incredible force up through all the overlaying layers.

But wait, Fe and Ni are only the 26th and 28th elements on the periodic table. Gold(Au) and the atomically heaviest known naturally occurring element plutonium are the 79th and the 94th elements respectively. So as the Fe and the Ni and other heavy nuclei are blasted up from the depths of the exploding star some of these fuse with others again and again in a creative maelstrom of nucleosynthesis. (But see my last paragraph for another theory.)

So the supernova both creates the heavier elements and it launches them out into space where someday some of them might combine with elements from other stars in a dust cloud that then collapses into a solar system including a planet like ours.

P.S. It is now thought that something even more exotic could be required to build heavy elements like Au and Pu; a supernova caused by the collision of two neutron stars. This may sound like it might be an impossibly rare event but it does occur fairly regularly. This is because binary stars are very common and because the neutron star state is a common condition that massive stars can collapse into after going supernova. Two neutron stars in a tight orbit will be drawn toward each other until they collide. So, it could be that it may take a series of THREE supernova explosions to form Gold!

(See the news bystander has colected for us here : http://asterisk.apod.com/viewtopic.php?f=31&t=31783)

P.S.S. The explosion caused by the collision of two neutron stars is only 0.1 to 0.01 as powerfull as the average supernova, and 1,000 times as powerful as a typical nova, so they are calling these kilonovas. But they still rock. One kilonova is reported to be able to produce 10 of our Moon's worth of gold!

[STP Vroom Vroom]

A chemist has discovered how to make gold using bacteria. It's been widely reported in the mainstream news.

[BDanielMayfield]

A chemist has discovered how to make gold using bacteria. It's been widely reported in the mainstream news.

Out of other elements? That kind of alchemy is toally imposible. Don't believe everything you read.

[BDanielMayfield]

The bacterium doesn’t make gold, it excretes gold that was suspended in water. Still, it could be a very useful discovery.
http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/ ... 682812.htm

[geckzilla]

Hah, yeah, I just imagined a bacterium as an impossibly microscopic fusion factory. That is one bacterium I do not want to be near.

[BMAONE23]

The bacterium doesn’t make gold, it excretes gold that was suspended in water. Still, it could be a very useful discovery.
http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/ ... 682812.htm

Ah the Midas Bacterium...That golden touch

[ErnieM]

BDanielMayfield wrote:

..... Therefore the crust of the Moon is a very unlikely place to prospect for gold Ernie.
.......
A much more promising area to prospect for precious metals are the asteroids. Much of the heavier elements in the earth's crust today are thought to have come from asteroids that hit the earth after the Earth had cooled off from the great impact that formed the Moon.
.......
A much more promising area to prospect for precious metals are the asteroids. Much of the heavier elements in the earth's crust today are thought to have come from asteroids that hit the earth after the Earth had cooled off from the great impact that formed the Moon.

Many large Moon craters are evidence asteroids hit the Moon also. Would gold bearing asteroids discriminate and only favor Earth over the Moon? If indeed gold came from asteroids, then gold will be found on the Moon.

[BDanielMayfield]

That is true; asteroids would have delivered gold to the moon too. But the supposedly smart money seems to be targeted toward asteroid rather than lunar mining. When a gold and platinum rich asteroid impacted the moon much of its material would have been deeply buried and the rest would have been diluted with lunar material and widely dispersed as ejecta. This burial, dilution and dispersal happened here on Earth too, but there have been billions of years of geologic (and, evidently biologic) processes that have helped concentrate precious metals in places.

Smart prospectors always seek the source, the “mother lode". That’s why these start-ups will be looking toward the asteroids. And since there are plenty of near earth asteroids they won’t be needing to go clear out to the asteroid belt to find them.

[neufer]

<<Edison's Conquest of Mars is an 1898 science fiction novel by American astronomer and writer Garrett P. Serviss. The novel depicts Thomas Edison leading a group of scientists studying derelict Martian equipment; they are able to develop an anti-gravity device powered by electric repulsion as well as a disintegration ray. The book contains some notable "firsts" in science fiction: alien abductions, spacesuits (called "air-tight suits"), aliens building the Pyramids, space battles, oxygen pills, disintegrator rays and asteroid mining (i.e., a solid gold asteroid mined by the Martians).>>

Click to play embedded YouTube video.

The 1979 film Alien is about the crew of the Nostromo;
a commercially operated spaceship on a return trip to Earth, hauling
a refinery and 20 million tons of mineral ore mined from an asteroid.

<<Some economic analyses indicate that the cost of returning asteroidal materials to Earth far outweighs their market value, and that asteroid mining will not attract private investment at current commodity prices and space transportation costs. Other studies suggest large profit by using solar power. Potential markets for materials can be identified and profit generated if extraction cost is brought down. For example, the delivery of multiple tonnes of water to low Earth orbit for rocket fuel preparation for space tourism could generate a significant profit.

In 1997 it was speculated that a relatively small metallic asteroid with a diameter of 1.6 km contains more than $20 trillion USD worth of industrial and precious metals. A comparatively small M-type asteroid with a mean diameter of 1 kilometre could contain more than two billion metric tons of iron–nickel ore, or two to three times the annual production of 2004. A small portion of the extracted material would also be precious metals. Although Planetary Resources says that platinum from a 30-meter long asteroid is worth 25–50 billion USD, an economist remarked that any outside source of precious metals could lower prices sufficiently to possibly doom the venture, by rapidly increasing the available supply of such metals.

Development of an asteroid-orbit manipulation infrastructure could offer an irresistible return on investment, however! [When the California gold rush began in 1849, Cornelius Vanderbilt (May 27, 1794 – January 4, 1877) switched from regional steamboat lines to ocean-going steamships. Many of the migrants to California, and almost all of the gold returning to the East Coast, went by steamship to Panama, where mule trains and canoes provided transportation across the isthmus. All this helped to make Vanderbilt the 2^nd-wealthiest person in American history, after John D. Rockefeller.]>>

[ErnieM]

BDanielMayfield wrote:

That is true; asteroids would have delivered gold to the moon too. But the supposedly smart money seems to be targeted toward asteroid rather than lunar mining. When a gold and platinum rich asteroid impacted the moon much of its material would have been deeply buried and the rest would have been diluted with lunar material and widely dispersed as ejecta. This burial, dilution and dispersal happened here on Earth too, but there have been billions of years of geologic (and, evidently biologic) processes that have helped concentrate precious metals in places.

Smart prospectors always seek the source, the “mother load.” That’s why these start-ups will be looking toward the asteroids. And since there are plenty of near earth asteroids they won’t be needing to go clear out to the asteroid belt to find them.

Here we go again. SMART MONEY! Smart money gave us global warming and unprecedented extreme weather phenomena. Who knows how the orbits and trajectories of those near Earth asteroids will change? In the name of profit, there will be temptations to shorten the distance and cut expenses. I believe take big chances. No the bigger the risks, the bigger the reward. Do we really want to risk increasing the odds of another near earth asteroid collision? When accidentally nudged towards the Earth, who will clean up the mess? The dinosaurs are proof what a big mess it can be.

SMART MONEY must leave the NEAR EARTH asteroids alone!

[BDanielMayfield]

ErineM has made some valid points. Cutting safety corners in the quest for increased profits happens, doesn’t it? And the potential dangers of asteroid mining should never be minimized. Accidentally causing a NEO to collide with Earth could easily be the worse manmade disaster ever. So, I really don’t want to give the impression that I’m all that gung ho for this asteroid mining business.

That being said, is it possible that these endeavors could be beneficial? Really, both sides of this coin should be looked at objectively. These companies are planning to launch fleets of small telescopes into orbit in the search for objects with mining potential. Provided that the firms don’t keep their discoveries secret this will help humankind find remaining undiscovered Potentially Hazardous NEOs. In learning how to handle these objects safely the skills could be developed to ward off future impacts. Elements being taken from asteroids (and the Moon) rather than having to strip mine Earth’s mountains, forests and jungles would be good for Earth’s environment. And for the real long term, our being able to expand the human presence out from this planet will require the ability to manufacture needed equipment out of the raw materials found in space.

Still, none of the benefits would be worth it if the worst case scenario was ever to happen. So the question is, can asteroid mining be done safely?

[Beyond]

The real question is: can anything be done safely? Once you get beyond the simple, into the technology realm, the answer is NO! The hazardous by products produced by technology is astounding, to say the least. Of course there are a few who are attempting to do things to clean up some of the hazardous stuff that technology leaves behind, but technology is advancing way to fast. That's just how it is, now-a-days.

[geckzilla]

If our species is so burdensome on its natural resources that it has to look desperately in space asteroids for extra material to fulfill its needs, maybe the solution isn't to keep making more stuff for more people so that more people can make more people to make more stuff for more people and so on.

[neufer]

.

Click to play embedded YouTube video.

If our species is so burdensome on its natural resources that it has to look desperately in space asteroids for extra material to fulfill its needs, maybe the solution isn't to keep making more stuff for more people so that more people can make more people to make more stuff for more people and so on.

So what else do you suggest people do
-------------------------------------------------------------

• The Taming of the Shrew > Act IV, scene III

GRUMIO: I gave him no order; I gave him the stuff.

Tailor: But how did you desire it should be made?

GRUMIO: Marry, sir, with needle and thread.

[geckzilla]

Become smaller. Wee little people.

[Beyond]

Take up the fine Art of thumb twiddling

[ErnieM]

The other day, I bought a small printer and an Apple ipad mini. Both carry an Ontario EHF (Environmental Handling Fee). I even paid tax on it.
The fact that "Smart Money" is already thinking of NEO mining is a sign that we have reached the tipping point. It is now time to extend this Environmental Handling Fee to all mined resources and commodities including NEOs to reflect the true costs of handling the waste and pollution generated by these industrial sectors. This way, the fee becomes a "consumption fee" paid by the users of these products. Some may say this a "license" to pollute. I say, it is a more fair system than the simple antiquated royalty fee system where the environmental clean up costs are subsidized and disproportionately shouldered by poor tax payers who are either low/non consumers of these products.
Furthermore, whether the product is bought or not, the same amount of waste and pollution are generated. So make this a front load fee, paid by the resource companies at the "generators and source of waste and pollution". Not at the retail level. The more waste and pollution generated, the higher the fee paid.

If only the very rich can afford to enjoy resulting products, so be it. It is a fact of life now. This fee is in addition to the luxury taxes rich people and celebrities pay now for their toys.

Earth, our environment, the only one we have, shared by all regardless of gender, age, skin color, financial standing, race, creed or religion, will be better for it.

[geckzilla]

Earth, our environment, the only one we have, shared by all regardless of gender, age, skin color, financial standing, race, creed, religion, or species will be better for it.

There, I fixed it.

[ErnieM]

Thank you gexk\illa. And may I add, species, known and unknown.

Incidentally, here is the August 12, 2013 Picture of the Day. Orbits of Potentially Hazardous Asteroids.

http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap130812.html

[ErnieM]

Digging more about NEO asteroid mining, I see these guys are modern day snake oil promoters.

From the Economist:

Asteroid mining
Fool's platinum?
Jan 24th 2013, 15:36 by M.H. | SEATTLE

IT ISN'T a gold rush quite yet. But the launch of a second asteroid-mining venture in a year suggests that the allure of extra-terrestrial prospecting may be as hard to resist for some as the Klondike was. On January 22nd a Californian start-up called Deep Space Industries entered the fray. It joins Planetary Resources, a firm backed by Google executives Larry Page and Eric Schmidt, which promised to have its first asteroid-hunting spacecraft in orbit by the end of 2014. The potential bonanza is, well, astronomical. A single 500-metre metal-rich asteroid might contain the equivalent of all the platinum-group metals mined to date. Even humble ice could sustain astronauts or be processed into rocket fuel for future missions to Mars.

Deep Space Industries might be dreaming big but it is starting small. Smaller still, in fact, than the relatively puny Planetary Resources. The company is aiming to raise a mere $3m this year from venture capitalists, angels and private-equity funds, and another $10m next year. It will spend the money designing, building and launching a fleet of three single-use spacecraft, dubbed Firefly, to conduct fly-bys of small asteroids. Planetary Resources, by comparison, intends to launch several constellations of tiny spacecraft into Earth orbit, where they will spend years observing and cataloguing nearby rocks.

The idea is to build Firefly on the cheap, forgoing extensive testing and using commercial off-the-shelf components rather than custom-built electronics. To reduce costs further, it will fly alongside larger payloads on scheduled flights. David Gump, the company's boss, hopes to attract corporate sponsorship for his first missions. He is also counting on support from NASA, America's space agency, and possibly its counterparts in other countries.

In this, Mr Gump has some form. Five years ago he co-founded Astrobotic Technology, a company which has booked a place on Space X's Falcon 9 rocket for a lunar rover called Polaris. If all goes to plan, in October 2015 Polaris will embark on a one-way mission, carrying NASA instruments to hunt for water, oxygen and methane at the moon's north pole. Polaris benefited from $3.6m of NASA contracts and Mr Gump hopes Deep Space Industries will strike similar arrangements, especially as no one has ever studied the small asteroids that Firefly plans to visit. According to Mr Gump, NASA seems interested.

If successful, the Firefly missions will be followed by a more sophisticated budget spacecraft, called Dragonfly. This robotic vessel, which Mr Gump hopes to have up by 2016, would try to intercept a small asteroid and return a hefty 25-65kg sample to Earth within three to four years.

If all this sounds far-fetched, that's because it is. Stardust, dispatched by NASA, and Hayabusa, launched by its Japanese counterpart, took more than twice as long to bring back just a few specks of dust. Deep Space Industries' proposed robotic 3D printer to aid its mining operations is, if anything, fancier still. It would accept crushed nickel-rich space rock at one end and churn finished spacecraft parts out at the other. None of the company's technology has yet been demonstrated.

Most important, perhaps, the economic case for asteroid mining also remains far from obvious. A doubling of supply from space might, for instance, exert such downward pressure on the price of platinum on Earth as to undermine the whole business case for the venture.

[Chris Peterson]

Digging more about NEO asteroid mining, I see these guys are modern day snake oil promoters.

Yup, I think that's about right. Asteroid mining is right up there with that Musk nutter's Hyperloop. These things ain't gonna be happening this century, except maybe as investment scams.

[neufer]

Digging more about NEO asteroid mining, I see these guys are modern day snake oil promoters.

Yup, I think that's about right. Asteroid mining is right up there with that Musk nutter's Hyperloop.
These things ain't gonna be happening this century, except maybe as investment scams.

There are three main organizations selling Moon land, each with different legal claims and property options.
-------------------------------------------
The Lunar Embassy

The Lunar Embassy was established in 1980 when Nevada resident Dennis Hope "found a loophole" in the UN's International Space Treaty, allowing him to claim ownership to the Moon (along with the rest of the solar system, except Earth) and declare himself Head Cheese. He has since made over $9 million selling Moon land by the acre.

Cost: $22.49 per acre.

What You Get: If you stake a claim through Lunar Embassy, you get a parchment-like deed to one acre of Moon land (presumably chosen by the Embassy), a Lunar Map, the Lunar Constitution and Bill of Rights and a copy of a short story entitled, "You Own the What?"
-------------------------------------------
Lunar International

Founded in 1996, Lunar International dedicates itself towards allowing regular citizens to own property on the moon. The company sells plots of moon property from one to five acres in a dozen different lunar regions, from the Sea of Tranquility to the Ocean of Storms.

Cost: $18.75 to $37.50 per acre, depending on location.

What You Get: Each property package sold by Lunar International includes a personalized deed certificate, information about the lunar region where the property is located, a satellite photograph of the area and geographic coordinates to help purchasers find their lunar property through a telescope. Buyers also receive a free membership in the Society for Lunar Exploration and Development (SLED), a citizen advocacy group concerned with the privatized ownership and development of lunar real estate.
-------------------------------------------
The Lunar Republic

Founded in 1999, the Lunar Republic Society is dedicated to establishing a human presence on the Moon through private enterprise. Via its sales affiliate, the Lunar Registry (The Earth's Leading Lunar Real Estate Agency), the Republic sells a variety of Moon plots, by the acre.

Cost: $18.95 to $37.50 per acre.

What You Get: Lunar Registry is currently offering "select" property on the Sea of Vapors for only 18.95 per acre and in the Lunar Alps for 31.25. Note that there is no sea (or vapor) in the Sea of Vapors and no snow on the Lunar Alps. Your deed is engraved on parchment-like paper, plus you get a satellite photograph of your property, as well as a brochure detailing attractions in the area. There is a $10 shipping and handling fee.

[Beyond]

Man... they're mooning everybody... with their pants up