For a long time, scientists believe gold was forged in ancient supernova explosions, but new research suggests a far more violent process, National Geographic reported.
According to a new study, Earth's gold is formed by the collision of two neutron stars. The massive collision produced intense and short gamma ray bursts (GRBs) along with a cloud of debris containing a complex cocktail of heavy elements, mainly gold.
With NASA's SWIFT satellite, a gamma ray hunter, astronomers discovered such a collision on June 3, naming it GRB 130603B. The impact occurred nearly four billion light years away from Earth and that some of the material, containing gold, was about one-hundredth the mass of the sun.
Lead author of the study Edo Berger, of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA), said he and his team followed the infrared light from the burst for days until it faded. Such a glow could only be produced by the radioactive heavy elements rich in neutron stars, an indication, the team says, of two neutron stars colliding.
"We estimate that the amount of gold produced and ejected during the merger of the two neutron stars may be as large as ten moon masses-quite a lot of bling!" said Berger in a Harvard press release.
With the way GRBs can create numerous moons of gold, Berger and his team concluded that neutron star collisions are the main reason for gold existing in the universe.
Berger said the gold they found in the one discovery would be worth ten octillion dollars in today's market. Such a number would written with a 1, followed by 28 zeros.
The study was published Wednesday in the Astrophysical Journal and Letters and is available online now.
"We've been looking for a 'smoking gun' to link a short gamma-ray burst with a neutron star collision," said co-author Wen-fai Fong, CfA graduate student. "The radioactive glow from GRB 130603B may be that smoking gun."
