Scientists at the University of Göttingen discovered where almost all the gold of the planet is hidden – but access to it is practically impossible.
In a scientific publication, the researchers say that about 99,999% of all the gold of the Earth are in its nucleus. These reserves have now formed about 4.5 billion years, in the early stages of the formation of the planet, and since then they have been blocked thousands of kilometers deep, reports the portal itcrumBs.ru.
According to the calculations of specialists, if all this gold could be extracted and brought to the surface, it would be sufficient to cover the entire surface of the planet with a gold layer about 0.5 meters thick. For comparison: the total volume of gold extracted by humanity throughout the history is only 216,000 tonnes, which represents only a very small part of the total quantity. This volume could only form a cube with a side of 22 meters, nothing more.
Interestingly, the gold available today for humanity is the result of geological coincidences. It is found in the form of inclusions in the terrestrial bark, mainly due to complex processes that have taken place over billions. However, a new research direction suggests that certain traces of gold could reach the surface from the depths of the planet. This hypothesis appeared after the discovery of a rare routine isotope (¹⁰⁰ru) in rocks on the bottom of the ocean.
According to the researchers, this isotope could only have reached there from an area near the Earth’s nucleus. And as ruthenia is often associated with gold, the assumption appears that gold could follow the same route. But this process is extremely slow and could take hundreds of millions of years, so we cannot expect a “gold shower” from the depths too soon.
At the same time, the exploitation of ores in space becomes an area of increasing interest. Asteroids contain colossal volumes of resources, including gold. For example, Psyche asteroid could contain, according to preliminary estimates, precious metals worth dozens of dollars. These resources have already become the subject of the interest of space agencies and private companies, planning future missions to exploit them.
