Starship Asterisk*

On the Origin of Gold

Explanation: Where did the gold in your jewelry originate? No one is completely sure. The relative average abundance in our Solar System appears higher than can be made in the early universe, in stars, and even in typical supernova explosions. Some astronomers have suggested, and many believe, that neutron-rich heavy elements such as gold might be most easily made in rare neutron-rich explosions such as the collision of neutron stars. Pictured here is an artist's illustration depicting two neutron stars spiraling in toward each other, just before they collide. Since neutron star collisions are also suggested as the origin of short duration gamma-ray bursts, it is possible that you already own a souvenir from one of the most powerful explosions in the universe.

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The Telegraph wrote:

Anglo-Saxon ring worth £10,000 found in garden

A GOLD Anglo-Saxon ring, thought to be about 1,300 years old, has been found in a garden by a man who was clearing away hedge clippings.

The ring, which is thought to have been dropped by a nobleman or woman in Norfolk in the 8th century, was discovered because it was glinting in the sun.

When the man showed it to his wife she said it looked like one of the cheap gifts found in Christmas crackers.

Now the ring has been valued at about £10,000 by Geoffrey Munn, one of the experts on the BBC television programme Antiques Roadshow.
"It is one of the most exciting things which I have ever come across on the Antiques Roadshow," said Mr Munn, one of the programme's jewellery specialists.

Ann

Core of each Asteroid?

Most of our gold is in the center of the Earth... as it sank as the Earth was forming, or so it is written if you do some searching... what we get on the surface would be from more recent meteoric strikes and the like. Hot water and was it sulfur? melt the gold and it comes up to the surface and precipitates out like condensation of water with elements of gold in it, creating veins... or some such as I have read...

So...where would gold be in outer space? Centers of meteors, and Asteroids, maybe as they were once molten and the gold gravitated inward.... Um.... OK... I CLAIM all asteroids, and mineral deposits in the Solar System.... "Back off, ya long eared varmint!"

Ooooo, ahm gonna be rich!!!

:---[===] *

My goodness, someone at APOD maybe knows what is going to be announced on Monday morning! LIGO is rumored to have observed the collision of two neutron stars!

heehaw wrote:
My goodness, someone at APOD maybe knows what is going to be announced on Monday morning! LIGO is rumored to have observed the collision of two neutron stars!

Rainer Weiss wins Nobel

weare a special unique goldylocks zone in the galaxy. That is the only explanation. Lots of elements populating this rock.including two legged smart ones.

I find your solution more than fair. Thank you.

"it is possible that you already own a souvenir from one of the most powerful explosions in the universe. "
We already have a very nice souvenir with all the molecules in our bodies!
Hmmmmm, fresh air!

I'm quite puzzled by this picture; I'm not sure what it's illustrating.
Certainly not neutron stars, which have surface temperatures considerably higher than the surface of the sun, and thus would be glowing white, not reddish or brick colored or pink with blue splotches.

geoffrey.landis wrote:I'm quite puzzled by this picture; I'm not sure what it's illustrating.
Certainly not neutron stars, which have surface temperatures considerably higher than the surface of the sun, and thus would be glowing white, not reddish or brick colored or pink with blue splotches.

It might actually be brilliantly blue-white.

But most people think that red looks like a hotter color that blue or blue-white, so many artists prefer using red or brick colors to illustrate unimaginably hot stars.

Ann

Ann wrote:

geoffrey.landis wrote:
I'm quite puzzled by this picture; I'm not sure what it's illustrating.
Certainly not neutron stars, which have surface temperatures considerably higher than the surface of the sun, and thus would be glowing white, not reddish or brick colored or pink with blue splotches.

It might actually be brilliantly blue-white. But most people think that red looks like a hotter color that blue or blue-white, so many artists prefer using red or brick colors to illustrate unimaginably hot stars.

• A new neutron star a few years old has already cooled down to around a million degrees.
  
  These neutron stars were billions of years old and probably quite cold.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neutron_star wrote:
<<The temperature inside a newly formed neutron star is from around 10¹¹ to 10¹² kelvin. However, the huge number of neutrinos it emits carry away so much energy that the temperature of an isolated neutron star falls within a few years to around 10⁶ kelvin. At this lower temperature, most of the light generated by a neutron star is in X-rays.>>

"These neutron stars were billions of years old and probably quite cold."

I will point out that they could not possibly be more than 13.8 billion years old. The surface area of neutron stars is so small that they just can't radiate energy well. The word "quite cold" in your statement means 'still much much hotter than the sun, but now cooled to "merely" blindingly white hot, no longer emitting-X-rays-hot.'

Gotta love the cosmic perspective. Hot is cold, red is blue.