The Gold Belt?

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I have been contemplating outer space a lot and I was thinking how cool it would be if there somehow could be something called "The Gold Belt" which would be similar to an asteroid belt only it would be made up of gold instead of rock and minerals. I know how gold is created inside super novas but I wonder if it is possible for there to be an abundance of it in certain locations and even an entire planet made from it? What do you all think? Are some places goldier than others? Is it possible to find the mother lode of all spaces in space jammed pack with more gold in once place it would be more than enough to supply every human on earth with two tons gold each?

And if such a place existed, would politicians fight to gain control of it?

Yes such places exist with an abundance of gold.. just not really near here. Gold is valuable because it is rare on earth but in the rest of the universe its actually pretty common. As for fighting over it by the time we have the technology to go out and get it we likely would long have found more efficient ways to alter one element into another and gold would have lost its value.

I know diamonds are quite common but difficult to get to in the universe. Gold planets would be very popular, even if they are common.

Several companies have announced plans for "asteroid mining" for minerals such as gold.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asteroid_m ... g_projects

However, skeptics say cost is too expensive to be worth it

Interesting but I am not referring to an asteroid with a few flecks of gold a mile into the surface. What I am talking about are asteroids that are mostly gold, like, greater than 75% and planets, too, clustered together in a specific location as if something happened there to create a lot of gold all at once. A literal "Gold Belt" that exists in certain locations.

While talking to my astronomy professor after the lecture I offhandily said "how do you know that there aren't planets made of solid gold in other solar systems?". He replied that "according to the current theory of stellar evolution that would be impossible".

While talking to my astronomy professor after the lecture I offhandily said "there could be planets in other solar systems made of solid gold, for all we know" He replied that "according to the current theory of stellar evolution that would be impossible".

Living in northern CA I've had a chance to go gold prospecting. There's still lots of gold in CA.
In fact someone recently found a huge 6 lb. nugget not too far from where I live.

Many prospectors and geologists are convinced, most of the gold that came to the Earth as asteroids/meteors, came down in huge chunks.

This is the reason, they say, why the huge gold deposits in the earth are relatively localized, like the California
gold fields.

I am thinking mostly gold, not solid gold. More gold than any planet here.

That is interesting, thanks. So it could be plausible some asteroids are more goldy than others and there could be some in an area where a lot of gold just happened to be lingering around and then solidified which little objects tend to do when around each other in great number thus creating an asteroid that is made of more gold than the norm.

There's lots of gold deep in the Earth. When the Earth was still molten, most of it sunk towards the center. The gold you find on the surface is a tiny percentage of the total. Unfortunately, if you did find large amounts of gold, that fact would make it worth less, maybe even worthless.

Same idea. Either all gold, or mostly gold for a celestial object the size of a planet, or even the size of an asteroid is unlikely.

Most of the matter of the universe is - well actually its dark matter. Lets put dark matter aside.

Most of the remaiing stuff that isnt dark matter is either hydrogen, or helium. I believe its 74 percent hydrogen, 24 percent helium (the stuff formed in the big bang that coalesced into stars). The remaining two percent is the heavier elements formed by baking the hydrogen atoms into bigger atoms at the core of the stars for last fourteen billion years. So the universe is78 percent gas, two percent dirt.

Earth is made mostly of dirt ( formed in the cores of long dead stars). So dirt seems common, but its actually rare in the universe.

Within the dirt some elements are more common than others. The heavier the element (and closer to the bottom of the periodic table) the rarer it is( generally speaking). Beyond iron it drops suddently to be even more rare. Gold ( being heavier an element than iron) is extremely rare in the universe. Though it might be more common relative the two percent of the universe thats dirt than it is in the dirt that forms the earth's crust.

My guess: either the earth's core, or some solid objects in space, might be richer in gold pound for pound than the earth's crust.But gold still wouldnt exactly be 'common as dirt' even in those places. And in either place-earths core -or somekind of asteroid in space- gold would be more expensive to mine than the value you would get out of it- given the technology of the foreseable future.

It might be rare in our solar system but I wonder if it really is rare in the universe? I know what it takes for gold to appear. Couldn't a gigantic star produce a lot of gold?

The fact that there is enough carbon around to make up most of your body is already miraculous. Asking the universe to crank out more of a heavy element like gold is a tall order.

Even supermassive stars find it hard to crank out elements heavier than iron because the fusion process takes in more energy than you get out of it when you get below iron on the periodic table ( imagine a hydrogen bomb that so weak that it absorbs more energy than it puts out). And most gold in the universe is actually created in the brief moment of a supernova (when stars explode) and not the gradual baking process of the cores of stars.

The Sun is a third, or forth, generation star. So we already live in relatively dirty (metal rich) corner of the cosmos because the stuff around us has already been cooked in multiple stars, or gone through supernovas. So,if anything, most places out there are poorer in heavy elements than we are. Not richer.

When massive stars do supernova alot of their material ends up in neutron stars, or in black holes. Not all of it gets delivered to the interstellar medium to get recycled into new planets.

So don't get your hopes up too much.



However- if you wanna go prospecting for gold you might wanna travel inward to the hub of the galaxy. Its only 50 thousand light years away.

According to wiki because there are more stars at the hub, more stars have exploded, and there is more dirt and metal (stuff thats not hydrogen or helium) that gets recycled into making new solar systems per acre there. So it might be that gold might be less rare there than it is out here in the spiral arms.

But even so -were talking "less rare", were not talking "common". I doubt you would find mountains made of mostly gold on planets even at the hub of the galaxy. But who knows? You and your pack burro can board the space rocket, and check it out for us!

It is possible in the context of physical law but the probability is very small.

ruveyn

From the looks of common iron meteorites it can be assumed these have formed under pressure and gravity in order to form the nickel/iron material they are formed of. How hard is it to visualize deposits of gold and other materials (although much rarer). The heat of re-entry would probably melt the gold on the way down......now that would be a sight to see.