Alchemists have been attempting to convert base metals, such as lead, into gold since the year 300 A.D. and possibly beforehand. The idea of creating gold without the intense labor of extracting and refining it from the earth’s crust have enticed numerous rulers and heads of empires. When one realizes how gold is created in nature, it is easy to understand why the attempts of artificial transmutation have failed spectacularly.
A rare cosmic beginning
The formation of gold, silver, platinum, and other rare earth minerals requires a series of cosmic events to unfold in an event that occurs every one-hundred thousand to one million years in the Milky Way galaxy.
It all begins with a star. Stars have a life-cycle and in their final stage of life, there are three possible stellar fates for them. The Goldilocks situation is required to begin this journey.
Stars with an initial mass that is under 8 times our sun will go out relatively peacefully where they pretty much fizzle out through electron degeneracy and become white dwarf stars (dead stars). The star has run out of nuclear fuel and fusion no longer occurs as it does with normal stars.
The second fate is reserved for stars that begin with a mass of 20 or more times that of our sun. Such a mass is too heavy for neutron pressure to stabilize the reaction. Gravity is so intense with this much mass and the continuous reaction that the core is compressed into an infinitely dense point, resulting in the formation of a black hole.
When a star has an initial mass of 8-20 times our sun, the core of the star eventually has such an immense gravitational pull that the heating gasses can no longer contain the pressure. The instant where this occurs is known as critical mass. Within a fraction of a second after critical mass is reached, the pressure gives and a supernova explosion occurs. Electrons and protons are crushed together with unimaginable force, resulting in neutrons (no positive or negative charge). A neutron star is born from the aftermath of the supernova event. This is important because a neutron star is the first ingredient required for the creation of precious metals.
The force generated in the creation of the neutron star is mind-blowing. The neutron star (under 20km in diameter) is so densely packed that each teaspoon of it’s mass weighs billions of tons. Imagine an object where each teaspoon weighs more than the entirety of Mount Everest. The density of the neutron star becomes invaluable as we continue.
The death dance of neutron stars
The neutron stars create detectable ripples that travel across the universe, known as gravitational waves. These gravitational waves, if crossed with gravitational waves of other neutron stars act as magnetic attractors. Over time, if 2 neutron stars come within proximity for their gravitational waves to cross, they will enter into a death dance.
As the gravitational fields pull the two stars closer together, the intensity of the magnetic attraction increases. The stars will orbit around one another with their orbital velocity increasing exponentially as they get closer. The stars will not only each have an orbital speed encompassing a significant fraction of the speed of light, but the spin speed of each star (like the earth on its own axis) also reaches speeds of up to 24% the speed of light.
Once the gravitational waves of the neutron stars cross, there is no way of stopping the inevitable conclusion - a celestial collision. Two stellar objects the size of a major city, each with the density of billions of tons per square inch, collide at a speed of at least half the speed of light in a phenomenon known as a kilonova. Since energy equals mass x velocity, the energy at the time of the impact is simply unfathomable.
A kilonova creates precious metals
The force is so great and the energy so profound that the actual collision itself happens within just a few milliseconds and produces temperatures in the trillions of degrees. An atomic bomb reaches a core temperature in the millions of degrees, whereas this stellar merge is in the trillions. Replicating such an event by an alchemist with a wood stove and a clay crucible are just not on an even playing field.
The extreme temperature and violent reaction causes super-heated debris to be strewn across space from their point of origin. The super-heated debris contains the atomic structures of gold, silver, platinum, palladium, and uranium. There is no plausible evidence that a neutron star contains atoms of any of those rare elements prior to the aftermath of the aforementioned collision.
Precious metals require the collision of two neutron stars to be created at the atomic level - a very rare celestial event in terms of our galaxy and human time spans. The resulting ultra-high-speed/high energy event from the kilonova then ejects those atomic particles outward. Some of these particles enter the earth’s atmosphere over time and are formed together through geological pressure and silica encasement (ore veins), where they are mined, extracted, and refined.
What happens after the collision
If you are wondering what happens in the aftermath of the neutron star collision, there are two possible outcomes. If the neutron stars collide and there is a low enough mass left behind, then the remnants will merge and become a single, larger neutron star than either of the two original stars. However if the residual mass is too great, a black hole will form at the point of collision where the highest mass was reached at a single point in time. The debris created outside of the event horizon (the point where nothing can escape the gravitational pull - not even light) will still be ejected as the force of the explosion has a stronger propulsion than the gravitational pull outside the black hole’s event horizon.
If this subject is of interest to you, please check back for posts related to gold, silver, precious stones, monetary history, currencies and more.
Every item is different. The most reliable way to understand what you have is through an in-person evaluation.