How are elements such as gold created and why can’t humans creat
In: Chemistry
All elements other than hydrogen are generally created in stars.
normal Nuclear Fusion in the core of stars creates a variety up elements up to Iron in the periodic table. Once a star tries to fuse iron, it collapses and explodes, throwing off layers of material to form a white dwarf, or exploding in a supernova and creating a neutron star(or a black hole, but thats not relevant here). Its during the death throes of these stars or the collisions of neutron stars that more and more neutron and protons are added to already large elements, and the ejected material is released into space where planets may slowly accumulate it as they form.
While humans have been working with fusion and neutron bombardment, we don’t really have a good grasp on the technology yet, because trying to replicate the interior of a star just to fuse hydrogen into helium is hard enough, its even harder trying to create something like gold where the nucleus is huge, not to mention ludicrously expensive. We are far more likely to turn to reliable asteroid mining before we actually start creating gold or other heavy elements.
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