How much gold is there in our sun?

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XKCD 1944 claims that there is "more gold in the sun than water in the oceans". Is this really true?

The mass of the sun is 1.989 × 1030 kg.

Abundance in the Sun of the elements gives a percentage 1 × 10-7 % for gold *, so that leaves you with a mass of 1.989 × 1021 kg of gold.

HowStuffWorks states that there is 1.26 × 1021 kg water on Earth, of which 98% is in the oceans, i.e. 1.235 × 1021 kg.

This would mean the XKCD statement is true: there is 1.6 times as much gold in the sun as there is water in the oceans.

* They cite WolframAlpha as their source. Executing SolarAbundance "Gold" there confirms this (mass) percentage.

"Element Abundances in the Sun - The Elements Handbook", KnowledgeDoor claims that the base 10 log of the number of atoms of gold in the Sun for every $10^{12}$ atoms of hydrogen is $1.01 pm 0.15$. If I'm reading their references correctly, that's from Abundances of the Elements: Meteoritic and Solar, Anders, Edward, and Nicolas Grevesse, Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta, volume 53, number 1, 1989, pp. 197-214, doi:10.1016/0016-7037(89)90286-X

The atomic mass of gold is $197$ times the atomic mass of hydrogen (more precise figures are available, but irrelevant given the accuracy of the atomic proportions). So $2020$ kg of gold for every $10^{12}$ kg of hydrogen, meaning that ignoring all other elements and running with $1.99 imes 10^{30}$ kg for the mass of the Sun, it contains $4 imes 10^{21}$ kg of gold. Taking other elements into account - helium is actually significant - reduces that value to $3 imes 10^{21}$ kg.

This is about twice as much as the mass of the ocean, which corresponds to 2 standard deviations ($log_{10} 2 approx 0.3$ vs the standard deviation of $0.15$ in the log 10 value of the abundance).

How much gold is there in our sun? - Astronomy

By the end of this section, you will be able to:

• Explain how and why massive stars evolve much more rapidly than lower-mass stars like our Sun
• Discuss the origin of the elements heavier than carbon within stars

If what we have described so far were the whole story of the evolution of stars and elements, we would have a big problem on our hands. We will see in later chapters that in our best models of the first few minutes of the universe, everything starts with the two simplest elements—hydrogen and helium (plus a tiny bit of lithium). All the predictions of the models imply that no heavier elements were produced at the beginning of the universe. Yet when we look around us on Earth, we see lots of other elements besides hydrogen and helium. These elements must have been made (fused) somewhere in the universe, and the only place hot enough to make them is inside stars. One of the fundamental discoveries of twentieth-century astronomy is that the stars are the source of most of the chemical richness that characterizes our world and our lives.

We have already seen that carbon and some oxygen are manufactured inside the lower-mass stars that become red giants. But where do the heavier elements we know and love (such as the silicon and iron inside Earth, and the gold and silver in our jewelry) come from? The kinds of stars we have been discussing so far never get hot enough at their centers to make these elements. It turns out that such heavier elements can be formed only late in the lives of more massive stars.

Aliens Love Gold As Much as Humans Do

Real or imagined, aliens challenge our beliefs of what it means to be human.

July 2, 2013— -- Today is World UFO Day. People in different countries are coming together to share stories about alien encounters. Many will stay up late monitoring the sky for UFOs, but alien experts will remind people that the best evidence could be found hidden in ancient ruins on Earth, and at the bottom of old religious sites like Guatavita in Colombia.

The gold rituals at the circular mountain lake Guatavita, located just north of Bogotá, inspired the legend of El Dorado and other mysterious cities of gold. Ever since Spanish conquistadores in the 16th century witnessed an indigenous chieftain covered in gold dust dump precious metals into the lake, legends of vast wealth captivated future generations of fortune seekers. And while the lake continues to attract gold hunters who are keen on dredging Guatavita for sunken treasure, many people would be surprised by researchers who believe that the bottom of the lake also contains evidence of extraterrestrial life that came to Earth in search of gold.

Some have suggested that aliens used gold in their atmosphere to reflect the sun's rays and preserve their planet. But for those of you who are skeptical, and need scientific evidence to show why aliens would be so interested in gold, Derrick Pitts, Chief Astronomer and Planetarium Director for the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia, offers an explanation that describes gold as an important element for space exploration and astronomy. "Gold is an inert material, it doesn't react with anything," he said in an interview for the popular History channel television series Ancient Aliens. "It is a wonderful conductor of electricity… and… a perfect reflector of infrared energy. You can use gold blankets to protect spacecraft against the intense heat of a star or any sort of heat source."

Others believe that aliens used ancient civilizations to mine for gold, and argue that if we examine old legends and temples we could identify patterns that prove the existence of extraterrestrial life. Following this argument, indigenous temples built over 1,000 years ago to commemorate the visitation of a god, and strange tribal chants and rituals that were designed to communicate with other worldly beings, could be interpreted as cultural evidence of alien contact.

One of the most famous alien visitations is supposed to have occurred in Cusco, Peru. The sun temple Qurikancha had a giant golden disc that some alien experts believe was a symbol of a gold-plated UFO that had landed in front of the Inca emperor Atahualpa, legendary for having direct contact with the "sky gods."

Other theorists go even further, claiming that the Great Pyramid of Giza is an ancient reactor that aliens used to make gold. But independently from whether you believe in aliens, ancient temples and mausoleums are like giant repositories for old sciences that have been lost. And these sciences can remind us that our ancestors were not only concerned with the environment and the planet, but also believed that survival was dependant on having a deep understanding of our solar system.

People have long looked up to the stars to figure out where they are, and where they will be going. So it is only natural that gold become a metaphor for our connection with the universe. Gold can remind us of the origin of our solar system. It is thought to have been made after the explosion of a star. The supernova scattered metallic dust that was later condensed into our solar system and the Earth. But sadly, gold can also remind us of our end. That we are at the early stages of an epic disaster where the sun could blow up or die out.

Aliens can similarly inspire us to tell stories about our future. They remind us that it is instinctual to dream about space. And they can become metaphors for the way that evolution pushes us to explore new places, and build new homes beyond Earth so that we can someday escape from extinction.

This is a popular theme in the new Superman movie Man of Steel, where Kryptonians have run out of resources and will need to flee from their planet to ensure survival. In this sense, the film presents aliens as an evolutionary force. However, this force can sometimes be polarized against humanity. General Zod, for instance, is a very cold and inhuman character, who determined to guarantee the survival of his alien race will sacrifice humanity without compassion.

Whether real or imagined, aliens challenge our beliefs and notions of what it means to be human. And while we are sometimes afraid of things that we don't understand, World UFO Day gives people an ideal to strive for, celebrate that we too are potential aliens. Someday we will venture beyond the limits of our solar system. And like Superman, the most famous alien in our culture, we hope to become symbols of our science and technology, and our compassion and morality.

How Much Gold Was Under WTC Complex?

Earlier this year, a coin dealership ran a television ad for a 10th-anniversary 9-11 commemorative coin that was allegedly “clad in .999 pure silver actually recovered from vaults beneath the ashes of Ground Zero.”

That commercial provoked retired New York Police Department Captain Tom DePrisco to tell New Yorks Daily News in late January, “That’s just pure bullshit.”

In the aftermath of the devastating attacks on 9-11, DePrisco was assigned to the Office of Emergency Management to assist in recovering precious metals buried in a two-story vault beneath the rubble of World Trade Center (WTC) Building 4 and transfer it to another vault at the Brooklyn Naval Yard World.

He said the operation began on October 16, 2001 and lasted for two days. DePrisco reminisces about the moment he walked into the vault. He said, “Walking into that vault . . . was like a scene out of [the James Bond movie] Goldfinger . . . endless neat stacks of gold, silver and platinum bars. A half-billion dollars worth.”

According to the Daily News article, “We never recovered any other precious metals,” said DePrisco. “So it boils my blood that anyone would sell a fake coin claiming to be made with silver recovered from Ground Zero.”

The Daily News has since contacted the dealer of these coins, who responded by saying that they were in fact authentic. The company said they have a complete chain of custody for the merchandise and claim to have bought these items from a company that purchased them from a bank “storing silver bars, coins etc. in its vaults under the WTC.”

The fate of nearly $1 billion worth of gold, silver and other precious metals stored beneath the WTC before 9-11 continues to baffle many. To this day, only$230 million has officially been accounted for. All of that was retrieved from the previously mentioned, two-level, 6,000-square-foot vault maintained by the Bank of Nova Scotia. They reportedly lost $200 million in gold as a result of the attacks. However, other estimates suggest there was an additional$750 million worth of precious metals that may have been stored in other vaults or hurriedly evacuated from the Nova Scotia vault before the skyscrapers came down.

According to a November 1, 2001 article in London’s The Times : “The Comex metals trading division of the New York Mercantile Exchange kept 3,800 gold bars—weighing 12 tons and worth more than $100 million—in vaults in the building’s [apparently Building 5—Ed.] basement. Comex also held almost 800,000 ounces of gold there on behalf of others with a value of about$220 million. It also held more than 102 million ounces of silver, worth [an estimated] 430 million.” The Times piece also reported that some of the recovered gold may have been found outside this vault. “The gold, which was discovered . . . was being transported through the basement of the building on the morning of September 11,” reads the article. “Recovery workers reached a service tunnel and discovered a 10-wheel [truck] and a number of cars [that] had been crushed by falling steel.” CHECK OUT THE 9-11 PRODUCTS IN AFP’s BOOKSTORE BY CLICKING THE BOOK COVER Another article appearing in the Daily News on October 31, 2001, corroborates this story: “The sources said the gold was found in a delivery tunnel under 5 World Trade Center.” If these accounts are true, they strongly conflict with the official story, which alleges that all the recovered metals were found inside the Bank of Nova Scotia vault under WTC 4. This has led some to speculate that insiders with short-term advanced knowledge of the attacks made a frantic effort to transfer the treasures by truck to a safe, undisclosed location. Was the uncovered 10-wheel truck the last in a fleet of gold-laden rigs with an armed security escort? Did personnel decide to abandon these vehicles and flee on foot as they heard the structure above them giving way? Answers to these questions may never be fully addressed so long as the federal government refuses to revisit the 9-11 tragedy with an adequate investigation. Meanwhile, some insist the official story is an unabashed lie and that another reason behind the 9-11 attacks was to pull off the biggest gold heist in history. One of the more outrageous claims along this vein comes from former mob boss Tony Gambino, who declared in a 2007 radio interview: “I know for a fact that Bush [and other] U.S. government leaders had prior knowledge and helped organize 9-11. They did it for many obvious reasons, one being to instigate a war in Iraq. But they also did it to get their hands on all the gold that was hidden below the [WTC].” Gambino claims that his grandfather’s construction company built the WTC and installed underground vaults to warehouse vast quantities of gold, where it was later stolen on 9-11. Keith Johnson in an investigative journalist and creator of the Revolt of the Plebs . 11 Comments on How Much Gold Was Under WTC Complex? Jaroslav Kukla says:<<<< Im a mental patient, please lock me up because I have cuckoo birds flying out of my head…. Dude, did you forget your meds for a few years or what? You sound like you took some LSD and just never came back. I'd say I wanna try what your on, but even an experience tripster knows your waaaaaaaaaaaaay gone. Lol, Listen, The truth is Kroll/Brinks/ScotiaBank w/ alot of help from the PAPD recovered 133 Brinks trucks full of gold and silver. You can find some of these coins for sale now. Collectors Universe bought some of the coins from ScotiaBank, they were trucked to Cali, the original coins were marked "Gem" then the subsidiary of CU, PCGS known as Professional Coin Grading Service begin marking coings in groups. (1/1000, 1,1440, etc.. besides that, some of the better collectable coins are of MS69 grade and have a Bar Code on the slab. Visit Google- MASONIC FINGERPRINTS LEFT ON 9/11 CRIME SCENE, for more details…The satanic,zionist BLUE LODGE of USA encoded into 9/11 attacks,the END TIMES…. In every local copy of Mesopotamia(Dark Rift)in Milky Way-where all the GOLD is,have a local story with gold…The zionist copy of Mesopotamia in Milky Way,on Manhattan island separated by Pishon-east river and Gihon-Hudson river,is the gold story under the Twin Towers and on Liberty Street 33… On the Sinai peninsula-copy of Mesopotamia,was the Golden Calf story…In both cases were killed about 3000 goyim… Incas had their Golden Coricancha temple in confluence of Huatamay and Tullumayo rivers…The Shiva’s golden city of Varanasi/Benares/Kashi is in conflunce of Ganges and Yamuna…Genesis 2:10-14 tells you where all the GOLD is… Jaroslav you are totally fuc*ed in the head. The Zionist megabankster burrow known as ‘City of London’ is a state within a state, in Canary Wharf, located on the female lap resembling bend of Thames river. Tutankhamon had his ‘golden tomb’ in the Nile river-bend. And solar king of Mexico (also serpent people) had his residence in Yaxchilan, in similar female-lap river bend on the river of Usumacinta. The Khazars of Prague have a similar bend (Josefov quarter) on the Vltava river-bend. Another Khazarian Talmudic-masonic “secret” revealed to you. Thus, all our planet is under total control of the MASONS, including parliaments and governments. The Twin Towers had each originally a total of 117 floors (110 above the ground and 7 below) and stood upon 117 steel columns embedded into the bedrock of Manhattan island. Mr.Gillespie describes in his book, Twin Towers, all the masonic rituals performed by the local New York and New Jersey Port Authorities! Minoru Yamasaki, the masonic architect from Seattle, also encodes in his name Min and Yama-both, male and female stargates. Yama was known as the Black Hole, in astronomy known as CygnusX1 = The SWAN, which is also the “sacred bird” of the highly masonic British Queen! National Geographic magazine, from February 1989, pages 140-185, clearly depicts the U.S. Skyscrapers masonic calendar in their architecture (24 buildings in total, with 2 sets of Twin Towers, that of Monadnock in Chicago-birthplace of skyscrapers and Twin Towers of Jew Yoke City). 117 is the KEY and BASIC number of the Mayan calendar, based also on the Sunspots magnetic fields, two sunspots of our Sun in harmony, where one magnetic field in 1 day moves 13 arc degrees and the other 9 arc degrees. Hence, after 117 days they get both into ONE LARGE MAGNETIC FIELD and a WAVE. 117 double is 234 and 468 and 936 and double of that is 1872 days multiplied by 10 is 18720 days of the Maya calendar cycle, and by 100 it is 1,872,000 days or 13 Bak’tuns (from Egyptian Kab/Geb and Nut). Psalm 117 is the shortest chapter in the masonic Bible. Song of Solomon, celebrates UNION (69) of male and female, has total 117 verses. Psalm 118 is the central chapter and Psalm 118:8 is the central verse. The Bible has 1188 chapters, a solar number. (Lunar is 1170). Psalm 119 is the longest chapter and symbolizes a new beginning cycle on Earth. (The Israeli Knesset has 119 members and 120th place is vacated for their “Messiah”). The masons who had established the modern Olympic Games of Athens 1896 had participants from 13 countries competing in 9 sport disciplines, just as the Maya had 13 layers of heavens (13 houses of zodiac) and 9 gods of the Underworld (9 planets of our Solar system). Islamic stories tells us that Mohammed had a total of 13 wives, and when he died, 9 of them remained widows. 117 meters of 117 feet is the usual height of many churches in the world. The other number is also 135 meters or feet as the END TIME number, also encoded in the Euro currency issued by the ECB. The Summer Olympic Games are solar calendars and Winter Olympics are lunar calendars. After 69 or/and 70 years they were passed from Arbertville 1992 to Lillehammer 1994. Masonic cypher,d eliberately. London had these Games three times to match the trinity galactic alignment of 2012 (ZION), after 116/17 years from Athens 1896. And NASA does the same, landing the Space Shuttle program after 135th and Last Flight. Oh you foolish goyim of AmeriKa (kosher), do you know that WTC1 + WTC2 + U.S. stock market (destroyed afterwards) copied the 3 stars of the phallic Belt of Orion, also known as Min or Tav?? See the 3 obelisks of Washington, D.C. (the real District of Criminals)! And, don’t you have Pennsylvania Avenue going 19.48° SE-NW toward the Galactic center as the solstice path. Don’t have the masonic Bible 1188 chapters as 1188′ arc minutes (19.48° arc degrees) and 1948 RED verses as direct speech of Christ, our Son and Sun. Oh you foolish goyim of Ameri-K-a. Read on Google-Bloody Masonic Fingerprints Left On 9/11 Crime Scene. Weekly & Monthly Graph of Gold Price in India • Gold Price Movement in May 2021 • Gold Rates22 Carat24 Carat 1 st May rateRs.44,170Rs.45,170 31 st May rateRs.46,700Rs.47,700 Highest rate in MayRs.46,800 on May 26Rs.47,800 on May 26 Lowest rate in MayRs.44,160 on May 2Rs.45,160 on May 2 Over all performanceRisingRising % Change+5.73%+5.60% • Gold Price Movement in April 2021 • Gold Rates22 Carat24 Carat 1 st April rateRs.43,370Rs.44,370 30 th April rateRs.44,170Rs.45,170 Highest rate in AprilRs.45,250 on April 6Rs.46,250 on April 6 Lowest rate in AprilRs.43,370 on April 1Rs.44,370 on April 1 Over all performanceRisingRising % Change+1.84%+1.80% • Gold Price Movement in March 2021 • Gold Rates22 Carat24 Carat 1 st March rateRs.44,940Rs.45,940 31 st March rateRs.43,370Rs.44,370 Highest rate in MarchRs.44,940 on March 1Rs.45,940 on March 1 Lowest rate in MarchRs.42,980 on March 29Rs.43,980 on March 29 Over all performanceFallingFalling % Change-3.49%-3.42% • Gold Price Movement in February 2021 • Gold Rates22 Carat24 Carat 1 st February rateRs.48,450Rs.49,450 28 th February rateRs.44,930Rs.45,930 Highest rate in FebruaryRs.48,450 on February 1Rs.49,450 on February 1 Lowest rate in FebruaryRs.44,930 on February 28Rs.45,930 on February 28 Over all performanceFallingFalling % Change-7.27%-7.12% • Gold Price Movement in January 2021 • Gold Rates22 Carat24 Carat 1 st January rateRs.48,940Rs.49,940 31 st January rateRs.47,960Rs.48,960 Highest rate in JanuaryRs.50,350 on January 6Rs.51,350 on January 6 Lowest rate in JanuaryRs.47,800 on January 28Rs.48,800 on January 28 Over all performanceFallingFalling % Change-2%-1.96% • Gold Price Movement in December 2020 • Gold Rates22 Carat24 Carat 1 st December rateRs.46,920Rs.47,920 31 st December rateRs.48,930Rs.49,930 Highest rate in DecemberRs.49,370 on December 21Rs.50,370 on December 21 Lowest rate in DecemberRs.46,920 on December 1Rs.47,920 on December 1 Over all performanceRisingRising % Change+4.28%+4.19% • Gold Price Movement in November 2020 • Gold Rates22 Carat24 Carat 1 st November rateRs.49,960Rs.50,960 30 th November rateRs.47,240Rs.48,240 Highest rate in NovemberRs.51,190 on November 9Rs.52,230 on November 9 Lowest rate in NovemberRs.47,240 on November 28Rs.48,240 on November 28 Over all performanceFallingFalling % Change-5.44%-5.34% NASA headed towards giant golden asteroid that could make everyone on Earth a billionaire NASA is eyeing up a nearby asteroid that contains enough gold to make everyone on Earth a billionaire. NASA is eyeing up a nearby asteroid that contains enough gold to make everyone on Earth a billionaire. Psyche 16 is nestled between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter and is made of solid metal. As well as gold, the mysterious object is loaded with heaps of platinum, iron and nickel. In total, it's estimated that Psyche's various metals are worth a gargantuan10,000 quadrillion.

That means if we carried it back to Earth, it would destroy commodity prices and cause the world's economy – worth $75.5 trillion – to collapse. We've known about Psyche 16 for a while, but its potential to cause havoc on Earth was recently touched upon by a veteran miner. Scott Moore, who heads up EuroSun Mining, said the sheer amount of gold in the asteroid threatens to throw the gold industry into chaos. "The 'Titans of Gold' now control hundreds of the best-producing properties around the world," he told Oil Price. "But the 4-5 million ounces of gold they bring to the market every year pales in comparison to the conquests available in space." Nasa is launching a mission to probe the asteroid in summer 2022. Dubbed the Discovery Mission, it will arrive at Psyche 16 around 2026. But bringing back an asteroid of this value could completely wipe out our global economy. Fortunately, the space agency is taking the trip for scientific purposes and isn't planning on conducting any mining. It reckons 16 Psyche is a survivor of violent hit-and-run collisions between planets which were common when the solar system was forming. That means it could tell us how Earth’s core and the cores of the other terrestrial planets were formed. Two space mining companies – backed by big name celebs – are gearing up for a gold rush after asteroid ownership was made legal in 2015. Deep Space Industries and Planetary Resources each have their eyes on the 2011 UW158 asteroid which is twice the size of the Tower of London and worth up to$5.7 trillion.

Harder to mine?

Large-scale mining is extremely capital-intensive, employing lots of machinery and expertise to mine vast areas on and below the surface.

Today, around 60% of the world's mining operations are surface mines, while the remainder are underground ones.

"Mining is getting harder in the sense that many of the large, low-cost mines, and older ones such as in South Africa, are nearing exhaustion," adds Mr Norman.

"Chinese gold mines, on the other hand, are much smaller, and therefore have higher costs."

There are relatively few unexplored regions left for gold-mining, although possibly the most promising are in some of the more unstable parts of the world, such as in West Africa.

Gold Price Factors FAQ

Gold is a commodity that can have very rapid price changes during periods of high volatility and can also have very little price movement during quiet periods of low volatility. There are many different things that can potentially affect the price of gold. These issues include but are not limited to: supply and demand, currency fluctuations, inflation risks, geopolitical risks, and asset allocations.

Gold is viewed by some as a “safe-haven” asset for it is one of the only assets with virtually no counter-party risks (gold requires no performance by outside entities to retain its value). This is why gold’s value may potentially rise during times of economic instability or geopolitical uncertainty.

Gold can, just like any other commodity, become volatile with rapid price changes and swings. The gold market can also, however, go through extended periods of quiet trading and price activity. Today many financial experts see gold as being in a long-term uptrend and that may potentially be one reason why investors are buying gold.

Markets do not usually go straight up or straight down in price, and gold is no exception. While gold can be volatile, gold prices are often no more volatile than the stock market or a particular equity. Large moves have been seen in almost every asset class, and almost all asset classes also exhibit periods in which they simply trade sideways.

Gold is traded all over the globe through all different time zones. In addition, with today’s markets running nearly around the clock, the need for constant price discovery has increased. Gold trades virtually around the clock to allow for banks, financial institutions and retail investors to access the gold market when they choose.

Gold spot prices change every few seconds during market hours and can fluctuate throughout the course of a day based on breaking news, supply and demand, and other macroeconomic factors. The gold spot price is determined by a variety of domestic and foreign exchanges, allowing the gold spot price to consistently update from 6PM EST to 5:15PM EST, Sunday to Friday (markets close from 5:15 PM to 6 PM EST each weekday). The changes in gold prices are due to supply/demand, as well as order flow and other factors.

How much gold is there in our sun? - Astronomy

Gold is made in the interior of massive stars.

When these stars end their lives, they often blow up and produce SUPERNOVA. During these giant explosions many elements that have high atomic number get made. This is where the gold (Au) comes from. Au is the way to write the symbol for gold.

It is amazing to realize that the iron (Fe) and the gold (Au) and in fact all the elements heavier than helium (He) were once within a star ! Billions of years ago when OUR star (sun) formed, the cloud of gas and dust that condensed had tiny amounts of gold (Au) and other heavy elements from previous generations of extinct stars. AMAZING BUT TRUE.

Gold, in its pure form is not made - it occurs naturally in an elemental form. On a side note, the history of alchemy was largely based on the desire of people (probably kings!) to combine other (cheap and abundant) elements and compounds to make gold. Most of the "gold" products such as jewelry , etc., have a rating in karats, as you probably already know. One karat is 1/24 part (by weight) pure gold, so pure gold is 24 karats.

Many products use various gold alloys for various reasons, but most do because the alloys are cheaper (usually silver, copper, zinc, nickel, etc. are mixed in), but sometimes gold is alloyed to make it a stronger and less malleable material.

Theoretically, all you need is some other stuff made of elements with atomic number smaller than gold and a source of neutrons. If you feed in the neutrons appropriately you can build up the nucleus up in mass until you get gold nuclei.

Along the way, some of the the neutrons will decay into a proton and electron and neutrino. The nucleus ejects the electron and neutrino and the atomic number steps up by one since there is now an extra proton in the nucleus. In practice, I think people have actually done this but it is not really practical it costs a lot more to make the gold than it is worth. So where did the gold we have on Earth come from? I believe that the source of gold is stars that have gone supernova.

When the star blows up there is a lot material, free neutrons, and energy available to create the elements that have more protons than iron. These elements then spread into the intergalactic medium during the explosion and contaminate surrounding gas clouds. As these gas clouds collapse to form stars and planets (perhaps in part due to pressure waves caused by supernova explosions) the heavy elements get collected as well. Then once a planet like Earth is formed, somehow geologic forces take over and process the gold into enriched forms until we find it. Another possibility is that other elements that are formed from supernova and are radioactive and have a higher atomic number than gold decay into gold.

I am assuming that you know that gold is not made but found as ore in rocks. So what you really want to know is probably how gold is mined and purified.

Let me try to answer this. First let us find out where gold is found. My geology book tells me: gold was carried toward the Earth's surface from great depths by geologic activity, often with other metals as a solid solution within molten rock. After this solid solution cooled, its gold content was spread through such a great volume of rock that large fragments were unusual. Because of its poor chemical reactivity, gold is found uncombined but it occurs in association with ores of copper , nickel, silver,etc, in quartz veins, in the gravel of stream beds, and with pyrites (iron sulfide).

Seawater contains astonishing quantities of gold, but it is too expensive to recover. How do we obtain gold? Two principal mining methods, placer and vein mining, can obtain gold. It is often a by-product of the mining of other metals. In placer mining, freely occurring gold is found in deposits of sand and gravel from which it can be easily separated by simple physical methods. The sand and gravel are suspended in moving water the much heavier metal sinks to the bottom and is separated by hand.
Vein, or lode mining, is the most important of all gold recovery methods. The gold in the veins can be in many different forms like nuggets or sheets, or in gold compounds.

In recovering gold from vein ore, the ore is first crushed in rod or ball mills. In this process the ore is crushed to a powdery substance from which the gold can be extracted by gravity separation. The gold dust then goes into the cyanidation mill, where it is dissolved out into a solution (the technique was pioneered by MacArthur and Forrest). The gold is recovered from this solution either by the more traditional method of adding zinc dust, which has the effect of taking gold's place, allowing it to be precipitated out, or, increasingly, by the modern technique of carbon-in-pulp.

The next stage is smelting. The gold is heated in a furnace with silica, borax and soda ash which soaks up most of the impurities, forming a slag which rises to the top of the furnace while the heavier gold settles to the bottom. This gold is poured into the bars that are shipped from the mine to be refined.

The last step of the purification is by electrolysis if higher purity is needed or platinum group metal contaminants are present. The Wohlwill electrolytic process gives 99.9% purity.

MacArthur-Forrest Process.
In the MacArthur Forrest process the ore is crushed to a fine powder and circulated through tanks containing a weak solution of cyanide, which has an affinity for gold. The solution dissolves the gold and the remaining rock pulp is filtered off.
Zinc dust added to the cyanide solution to replace the gold causes the fine specks of gold to be precipitated out and the precipitate is then refined.

Carbon-in-pulp.
A recovery process in which slurry of gold ore, free carbon particles and cyanide are mixed together. The solution is passed counter current through a series of tanks containing activated carbon particles. Gold has a natural affinity for carbon and the carbon adsorbs the gold as it passes through the circuit. Loaded carbon is removed from the slurry by screening. The loaded carbon is stripped in a caustic cyanide solution under heat and pressure, prior to the recovery of the gold by electrolysis or by zinc precipitation. The carbon is treated for re-use.

Wohlwill process
The electrolytic method of gold refining was first developed by Dr. Emil Wohlwill of Norddeutsche Affinerie in Hamburg in 1874. Dr. Wohlwill's process is based on the solubility of gold, but the insolubility of silver, in an electrolyte solution of gold chloride (AuCl3) in hydrochloric acid. The impure gold is cast into anodes of about 100 ounces each, which are suspended in porcelain cells, while the cathodes are thin strips of pure gold. By passing an electric current from anode to cathode through the electrolyte solution, the anodes are gradually dissolved and the gold therein is deposited on the cathodes any silver, which is insoluble in the electrolyte, and any platinum group metals are precipitated to the bottom of the cells. The sequence takes about two days, following which the gold-coated cathodes are removed, melted and cast into bars. The initial process can produce gold up to 999.5 fine, with further treatment bringing it up to 999.9.

How Much Water Is on Earth?

Earth has a lot of water. It's one of the things that makes our big, blue planet so special. Learn more about Earth's water in this video!

This poster summarizes the video and makes a great wall decoration!

How much water is on Earth?

Earth is special because it has so much water. It’s in the ground, forms big oceans, and it’s in our atmosphere.

It’s also in living things. Your body is made up mostly of water.

Water covers 71 percent of Earth’s surface. And almost all of it—96.5 percent—is salt water.

Salt water has different kinds of salt in it, but it mostly has sodium chloride, the same salt we add to our food.

Just 3.5 percent of the water on Earth is fresh water we can drink. And most of that fresh water, 68 percent, is trapped in ice and glaciers.

A third of the fresh water is in the ground. We call it groundwater. The last two percent of fresh water is in the rivers, lakes, and streams.

A very small amount is in our atmosphere, where it exists as water vapor. That’s what clouds are made of.

If you took all the water on Earth and put it together it would be a ball 860 miles wide. That’s a lot of water!