This is a very interesting hypothesis, but no less reasonable. Because it is extremely difficult to form an element like gold.
There is a scientific hypothesis that in the early days about 4 billion years ago, the Earth did not have a single nugget of gold.
Then meteorites containing this precious metal hit the newly formed Earth. Since then, a new chemical element with the symbol Au appeared, becoming the desire of all mankind today.
It is not unreasonable that the Incas believed that gold was the tears of the sun god.
After the Big Bang, the universe became extremely hot, extremely dense, and began to expand. As time goes on, the heat cools down, the photons convert into more subatomic particles (protons, neutrons, and electrons).
Thousands of years later, electrically neutral atoms appeared. The three light elements hydrogen, helium and lithium were born, followed by the heavy elements.
To make gold requires an r – or fast neutron capture process.
The process of creating heavy elements is also known as the “s-process” (s-process, or slow neutron capture). It occurs when neutrons strike a slower-moving nucleus, capturing the nucleus, forming heavy elements such as strontium, barium, lead, and ultimately iron.
But to make gold as well as much heavier metals, such as uranium, requires the opposite process. That’s the “r-process” (r-process, or fast neutron capture) , which occurs when faster-moving nuclei attack and capture neutrons.
Although the theory is not complicated, it is almost impossible to want to form an “r-process” . It requires merging of three conditions:
Even the Sun is only a few million degrees hot. And Earth absolutely does not meet these three requirements.
Only one phenomenon in the universe is suitable to produce it. It is a supernova explosion .
A supernova explosion is the explosion of a planet. It produces very bright objects, consisting mainly of plasma that flare up for a short time. The apparent magnitude suddenly increased by a billion times.
There are two types of supernova explosions:
During a supernova explosion, the protons and elctrons in the core are forced to stick together, creating neutrons. It converts the core into an iron nucleus-rich early neutron star, potentially qualifying for an “r-process”.
Saying “likely” is because not all supernova explosions reach extreme heat. The wind speed generated by the heat may also not be strong enough to blow the nuclei to catch up with the newly formed neutron.
Neutrons can also self-destruct, returning to protons, causing a shortage of neutrons to combine with iron nuclei.
To make gold, a collision between two neutron stars is required.
But if it’s a collision between two neutron stars, an “r-process” is bound to happen. When two neutron stars collide head-on, the heat reaches billions of degrees, and each photon can transform into 10 neutrons.
“Heavy nuclei are formed in the blink of an eye. Because there are so many neutrons, they become unstable, creating radiation. All of them glow brightly, eventually decaying to gold and platinum.” – Brian Metzger, physicist astrophysics at Columbia University, USA.
In fact, the probability of a neutron star collision is extremely rare . It can only happen in 100 million years, once every 10,000 years at the earliest.
Unlike supernova explosions, for a neutron star collision we need two neutron stars in a binary orbit. Then it would take another hundred million years for them to come together. Not to mention, the merger could also create a black hole instead of a larger neutron star. That also means there’s no way “r process” happens.
What is absolutely certain is that man is not capable of making gold.
Although the “r process” is the condition for making gold, it is still theoretical. In 2013, the Swift satellite recorded a brief gamma-ray burst (a type of event caused by the collision of neutron stars), proving the existence of an “r-process”. Unfortunately, we cannot collect the remnants from the explosion to see if it is gold, platinum or uranium.
Anyway, it is absolutely certain that humans are not capable of creating gold. The blue planet’s gold is all it has, unless some neutron star collision is close enough for the gold to fly into Earth’s gravity field. But even if that happened, there wouldn’t be anyone alive who would run out and pick up gold.