Where does gold come from?

Gold, the soft, dense, yellow metal is one of  the most famous and pricy chemical elements in the world.

Getting a lot of gold can make you wealthy. I had the same thought once- What if I discovered or made gold? That was greediness.

But there had been a lot of scientists and alchemists of history who had tried manufacturing gold artificially which turned out unsuccessful. But in this modern Yuga, manufacturing of gold artificially is not a big problem but highly costly.

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Origin of Gold

There had been a lot of researches done by scientists and researchers about the origin of the chemical element Gold. Every research pointed to the fact that gold was not formed on earth but on “space”.

Yes, the gold comes from outer space.

Supernova nucleosynthesis & collision of neutron stars:

Gold in the universe was traditionally thought to have formed by the r-process (rapid neutron capture) in supernova nucleosynthesis.  When the star explodes, a supernova happens, the gold formed inside the star forms dust when it explodes and these dust particles stay in outer space. It was also found that the gold may also be formed and produced by the r-process in the collision of neutron stars.

Detection of gold particles was done based on the method of absorption and fluorescent-based and imaging spectrometers in satellites were used.

Therefore to conclude, gold is thought to have been formed in the universe by supernova nucleosynthesis and also by the collision of neutron stars, and  the dust is formed in outer space, and these gold particles get deposited when new planets and a new orbital system gets formed It’s in one such dust that solar system had formed resulting in gold formation on earth.

Processing of Gold

Processing of gold, also called gold extraction refers to the processes required to extract gold from its ores. This process requires a combination of comminution, mineral processing, hydrometallurgical, and pyrometallurgical processes to be performed on the ore. Gold extraction takes place where gold is found in abundance because of its high cost. That’s why even though there is gold present in oceans, none take the risk of its extraction because of its minimal amount and high cost.

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