Starship Asterisk*

and where did the gold come from ?

ta152h0 wrote:and where did the gold come from ?

Like all the heavy elements, gold is produced by nucleosynthesis in supernovas. Gold is very unreactive, so when the Earth was still molted it sunk into the core without forming mineral compounds. So the surface gold we have on Earth was probably introduced later by collisions with comets and asteroids.

Chris Peterson wrote:

ta152h0 wrote:and where did the gold come from ?

Like all the heavy elements, gold is produced by nucleosynthesis in supernovas. Gold is very unreactive, so when the Earth was still molted it sunk into the core without forming mineral compounds. So the surface gold we have on Earth was probably introduced later by collisions with comets and asteroids.

sank! Sunk is the past participle!

owlice wrote:

Chris Peterson wrote:Like all the heavy elements, gold is produced by nucleosynthesis in supernovas. Gold is very unreactive, so when the Earth was still molted it sunk into the core without forming mineral compounds. So the surface gold we have on Earth was probably introduced later by collisions with comets and asteroids.

sank! Sunk is the past participle!

Yes, Ms Grammar Nazi. Of course, in my quest to simplify and normalize English, what I really intended was "sinked".

or as my former English teacher would have said " sunken ".......

ta152h0 wrote:or as my former English teacher would have said " sunken ".......

No, that's the future pluriciple. She should have said "sanken".

Chris Peterson wrote:

ta152h0 wrote:and where did the gold come from ?

Like all the heavy elements, gold is produced by nucleosynthesis in supernovas. Gold is very unreactive, so when the Earth was still molted it sunk into the core without forming mineral compounds. So the surface gold we have on Earth was probably introduced later by collisions with comets and asteroids.

What I wonder is not when to use sunk sank or sink, but rather, when did the Earth molt?

A fuzzy logic spell checker strikes again.

I feel the need for some molt liquor (or at least a glass of ).

OUCH! This 'sharper' thread has turned into a 'cutting edge' use of inglash.

BDanielMayfield wrote:What I wonder is not when to use sunk sank or sink, but rather, when did the Earth molt?

I believe it was triggered by the Late Heavy Bombardment.

Chris Peterson wrote:

BDanielMayfield wrote:What I wonder is not when to use sunk sank or sink, but rather, when did the Earth molt?

I believe it was triggered by the Late Heavy Bombardment.

Not sure. I believe the Earth molted whilst partially molten, after Theia struck to form the Moon. This was a few hundred million years before the LHB. Of course, this theory might be sunk one day. (Re: "future pluriciple", mind your language please Chris! )

Nitpicker wrote:

Chris Peterson wrote:

BDanielMayfield wrote:What I wonder is not when to use sunk sank or sink, but rather, when did the Earth molt?

I believe it was triggered by the Late Heavy Bombardment.

Not sure. I believe the Earth molted whilst partially molten, after Theia struck to form the Moon. This was a few hundred million years before the LHB. Of course, this theory might be sunk one day. (Re: "future pluriciple", mind your language please Chris! )

Since we're declaring personal beliefs ... (made moderators nervous, I bet) ... I believe that the evidence for a major protoplanetary collision as a cause for our Moon's existence is compelling; therefore I'm compelled to believe that this collision did occur.

Real question: since the energy released during this collision would have been enormous, and since the proto-Earth prior to the instant of the collision would have already been quite hot from prior impacts and the much higher radioactivity back then, wouldn't the Moon forming collision have melted the entire crust of proto-Earth?

Bruce

BDanielMayfield wrote:Since we're declaring personal beliefs ... (made moderators nervous, I bet) ... I believe that the evidence for a major protoplanetary collision as a cause for our Moon's existence is compelling; therefore I'm compelled to believe that this collision did occur.

Real question: since the energy released during this collision would have been enormous, and since the proto-Earth prior to the instant of the collision would have already been quite hot from prior impacts and the much higher radioactivity back then, wouldn't the Moon forming collision have melted the entire crust of proto-Earth?

Bruce

Personal beliefs are fine here, so long as they don't deviate too far from the mainstream scientific consensus, and are allowed to yield to new evidence.

To answer your real question, one would have to know what the proto-Earth was like before the collision, how much kinetic energy was converted into heat energy, and how that heat energy was transferred through what remained of the proto-Earth (after it molted shed some of its mass to help form the Moon). An enormous amount of energy is not guaranteed to be enormous enough.

This thread has really gotten tense

BMAONE23 wrote:This thread has really gotten tense

Past, present or future?