DailyDirt: Gold Doesn't Grow On Trees...

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

Thu, Jul 23rd 2015 5:00pm — Michael Ho

The gold rush seems to be over -- for now. The price of gold hit a 5-year low recently, and the prices of other precious metals are also falling. (However, there are more industrial uses for metals like platinum and silver -- while gold is largely either worn as jewelry or just sits in vaults.) Perhaps gold hoarders see an opportunity here to double down on collecting more, but it's probably a better idea to diversify.

Asteroid UW-158 isn't too far from our planet, and it has 'up to' 90 million tons of platinum on it. The precious metals on that rock might be worth trillions (maybe as long as you didn't just dump all of the platinum on the free market all at once), and it's not the only valuable asteroid out there. [url]
The price of gold isn't doing so great right now, and gold mining companies are doing even worse. If you haven't seen Joe's chart of the day, this video shows just how ugly it is for the gold mining industry. [url]
Where does all the gold in the universe come from? It's not known with certainty, but perhaps neutron star collisions are responsible for all the gold (and other heavy elements) that exists. [url]

After you've finished checking out those links, take a look at our Daily Deals for cool gadgets and other awesome stuff.

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Filed Under: asteroid mining, asteroids, gold, gold mining, heavy elements, jewelry, noble metals, platinum, transmutation, uw-158

7 Comments

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Anonymous Coward, 24 Jul 2015 @ 3:56am

I agree, Gold is worthless.
Everybody should just sent it to me, I'll dispose of it.
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- Richard (profile), 24 Jul 2015 @ 4:49am
  
  Re: I agree, Gold is worthless.
  If it is worthless why do you want it?
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- Mason Wheeler (profile), 24 Jul 2015 @ 7:21am
  
  Re: I agree, Gold is worthless.
  The tale is told of a group of miners during the California gold rush who used mechanical equipment to separate gold nuggets from dirt and pebbles. Problem is, the machinery kept getting clogged by this obnoxious blue-grey dust.
  
  A guy arrived on the scene who had some knowledge of the situation, and he offered to work for them to keep the machinery clean for a very reasonable fee. He'd even get rid of the clogging dust for them so they didn't have to dispose of it. The prospectors thought this was a great idea!
  
  Well, in the end, the prospectors never found all that much gold, but the cleaner ended up getting rich. He knew one thing that the prospectors didn't: that nuisance dust was composed almost entirely of pure silver, and they were giving a massive amount of it away to him for free!
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Anonymous Coward, 24 Jul 2015 @ 9:08am

When a star goes super nova, it releases matter and radiation. These elements contribute to new stars. Over time, heavier and heavier elements fuse together to form all the known elements of today. There's where it all comes from.
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- Michael Ho (profile), 24 Jul 2015 @ 12:19pm
  
  Re:
  "There's where it all comes from."
  
  Perhaps not ALL....
  
  https://medium.com/starts-with-a-bang/striking-cosmic-gold-1dff9b27d587
  
  The heaviest elements (including gold) might not be as abundant if they were formed only from stars exploding in supernova events. The majority of known gold might have been created in the collisions of neutron stars. So some of the gold we know about may be from supernova events, but most might come from star-star collisions.
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  - JoeCool (profile), 24 Jul 2015 @ 3:41pm
    
    Re: Re:
    Don't be silly! All the gold in the universe comes from a Philosopher's Stone.
    [ link to this | view in chronology ]
lisa brown (profile), 24 Aug 2021 @ 12:23am

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