Why is the center of the earth molten iron and not heavier metals, such as gold?

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I would assume heavier molten metals would be in the center of the earth. Is it possible that the center has different molten metals on top of each other with a high concentration of iron on the outside of the core?

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Anonymous 0 Comments

Iron is common as dirt, because all stars eventually burn their fuel into iron. Iron nuclei are at the lowest energy level attainable, so they won’t release any more energy by nuclear reactions.

Edit: all stars don’t, smaller ones stop earlier.

Gold is much more rare, only formed in cataclysmic explosions of large stars when they die.

So while there’s gold, lead, iridium etc in the Earth’s core, just by virtue of them being heavy, it’s vastly overshadowed by the amount of iron.

There’s quite a lot of gold, actually, compared to what we’ve got up here: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2006-06-15/researcher-calculates-gold-within-earths-core/1778918

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