How did Gold came to exist on earth?
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Gold, like other heavy elements, is produced in large stars near or at the end of their lives or in collisions of neutron stars.
In the former case, it’s produced by the [r-process](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R-process), where the huge numbers of free neutrons bouncing around inside a dying star can rapidly build up bigger and bigger atomic nuclei.
In neutron star collisions, it – like other products of those collisions – results from chunks of neutron-rich material blasted off from the extreme violence of the collision. A ball of pure neutrons is incredibly unstable when not under the conditions of a neutron star, so the neutrons quickly decay into protons and stop once they reach stable (usually heavy) elements.
In either case, one of those stellar events blasted gold out into our region of the Milky Way. And when a cloud of gas and other material collapsed to form our Sun and what would ultimately be the Solar System, some of that gold got incorporated into the ball of dust and rock that would eventually become our Earth.
APOD, Jan 8 2022, answers these questions. 🙂
[https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap230108.html](https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap230108.html)
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