Now we know why the price of gold has dropped...
Posted: Thu Jul 18, 2013 5:38 pm
CNN) -- All that glitters is not gold, they say. But all the gold in the world may come from astronomical events that send a lot of high-energy light out in space.
Researchers have new evidence that gold comes from the collision of neutron stars.
"We can account for all the gold in the universe from these collisions," said Edo Berger, astronomer at the Harvard-Smithson Center for Astrophysics. Berger spoke about these results, submitted for publication in The Astrophysical Journal Letters, at a press conference Wednesday. Although the idea has been floated that gold comes from explosions of supernovae, simulations suggest that it's hard to produce gold that way, Berger said. Supernovae may contribute some fraction of gold to the universe, he said, but it appears that neutron star collisions are the dominant mechanism of producing gold in our universe.
Scientists believe that the material that the merging neutron stars flung out included gold -- a lot of gold.
Berger estimates that the equivalent of 10 moon masses of gold are created and ejected when two neutron stars merge. At today's market rate, that would go for about 10 octillion dollars, he said. That's a 1 followed by 28 zeros...
Researchers have new evidence that gold comes from the collision of neutron stars.
"We can account for all the gold in the universe from these collisions," said Edo Berger, astronomer at the Harvard-Smithson Center for Astrophysics. Berger spoke about these results, submitted for publication in The Astrophysical Journal Letters, at a press conference Wednesday. Although the idea has been floated that gold comes from explosions of supernovae, simulations suggest that it's hard to produce gold that way, Berger said. Supernovae may contribute some fraction of gold to the universe, he said, but it appears that neutron star collisions are the dominant mechanism of producing gold in our universe.
Scientists believe that the material that the merging neutron stars flung out included gold -- a lot of gold.
Berger estimates that the equivalent of 10 moon masses of gold are created and ejected when two neutron stars merge. At today's market rate, that would go for about 10 octillion dollars, he said. That's a 1 followed by 28 zeros...