Where does gold come from? Even though we can find gold on Earth, Earth cannot make gold. No planet can. It takes something catastrophic to create it, like two neutron stars crashing into each other. The explosion, called a kilonova, is one of the most violent events in the universe. In just a few seconds, it can forge heavy elements like gold and fling them into space. That gold then drifted through space for billions of years until it became part of a huge cloud of dust and gas, the solar nebula. When that cloud collapsed under gravity, the Sun formed at its centre and the remaining material clumped together to form planets. But most of Earth’s original gold sank deep into its core because gold is extremely dense. The gold we can actually mine arrived later, delivered by asteroids and other extraterrestrial material. Over billions of years, geological processes and underground fluids concentrated some of it into the veins we mine today. So the next time you look at a piece of gold, remember: the gold in your jewellery is older than the Sun, was forged in an ancient cosmic catastrophe, travelled through space, and eventually became part of Earth. It is finite, and there is nothing on this planet that can naturally create more of it. ✨
Whatsapp forward.