Earth's gold may have been born in cataclysmic cosmic collisions
July 17, 2013 at 6:55 PM   |   0 comments  Artist's conception
of two neutron stars at the moment of collision, producing rare
heavy elements, including gold. Credit: Dana Berry, Skyworks
Digital, Inc./Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics
CAMBRIDGE, Mass., July 17 (UPI) -- All gold in the universe
likely came from massive cosmic collisions of the dead cores of
stars that previously exploded as supernovas, U.S. astronomers
say.  Gold, rare on Earth in part because it's also rare in the
universe, cannot be created within a star like carbon or iron,
they said. Instead, it must be born in a more cataclysmic event,
like one observed last month known as a short Gamma-ray burst.
The GRB resulted from the collision of two neutron stars, and a
unique glow that persisted for days at the GRB location likely
signified the creation of substantial amounts of heavy elements
including gold, a release from the Harvard-Smithsonian Center
for Astrophysics