Econintersect: The Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics presented findings today (17 July 2013) that attributes the existence of gold on earth to the collision of two stars. Unlike carbon, iron and other lighter elements which can be created by reactions within a star, many heavy elements require a “more cataclysmic event”.
Artist’s Conception of Two Neutron Stars Colliding
Click on picture for larger images from Harvard website.
Huge amounts of gold could be produced from just one collision. Lead author of the research paper on the observations, Edo Berger said:
“We estimate that the amount of gold produced and ejected during the merger of the two neutron stars may be as large as 10 moon masses – quite a lot of bling!“
Click on picture below to see animated interpretation of the collision between two neutron stars.
Sources:
- Earth’s Gold Came from Colliding Dead Stars (Press release, Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, 17 July 2013)
- Earth’s gold came from colliding dead stars (R&D, 17 July 2013)
- Smoking Gun or Smoldering Embers? A Possible r-process Kilonova Associated with the Short-Hard GRB 130603B (E. Berger, W. Fong and R. Chornock, arXiv.org>astro-ph>arXiv:1306.3960, Cornell University Library, 17 July 2013)
