This may sound unknown , but there ’s simply too much Au . That is , there should n’t be atomic number 79 here at the Earth ’s encrustation – it all should have been breastfeed deep into the core long ago . For that , we can give thanks asteroids .
atomic number 79 is one of the precious metal , along with platinum , atomic number 47 , palladium , iridium , and a crowd of others . While these metal do have a few industrial uses , they ’re mostly worthful simply because they ’re rare and they happen to make for pretty jewellery . ( That may be a tenuous oversimplification . ) The unusual affair is n’t that these metals are rare , but that there are any of these metal at all .
The reason for this is that the wanted metals tend to be attracted to iron . Over the lifetime of our planet , the by nature occurring precious metal should have been sucked towards plaza with high concentrations of iron . That mean all the style down to the satellite ’s liquefied iron heart and soul . And while it is n’t exactly out of the question that some of these metals would simply be left behind , that could only account for about a ten - thousandth of all the existing precious alloy .
Now researchers at the University of Bristol might have find out a solution . They ran some high - precision trial on Rock found in Greenland . These rocks go out back about four billion year and are the remnants of asteroids . The nature of the tungsten isotope find within these rock ‘n’ roll support the idea that asteroids carry a second round of golf of precious metals to Earth billions of age ago , long after the original metals had been colligate into the core .
So then , it was n’t just gold that people spent lifetimes chasing after – it was blank space gold . It ’s also an interesting reminder of how Earth is never truly isolated from the residual of the universe of discourse . Of naturally , that idea is hardly in dispute – it ’s looking increasingly likely that asteroids also brought urine and the building block of life to Earth – but this is a unequaled guinea pig in which ancient asteroid helped form our late chronicle . After all , without this blank space gold , what the hell would be the point of playing Yukon Trail ? I ’m trusted there are other diachronic factor to consider , but really , that strikes me as the most important .
ViaNature . persona byDigitalMoneyWorldon Flickr .
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