Gold from Neutron Stars?

Diplomat73 writes: "That's right! The NY Times reports that Scientists have traced gold to Neutron Stars. A team of scientists said Thursday that the origins of most of the gold, platinum and other heavy elements on Earth can be traced to the massive explosions of colliding neutron stars, hundreds of millions of years before the birth of the Solar System.

More valuable yet...

[Black Parrot]

...are the IOUN stones that can be harvested there.

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New Standard Features on Space Probes

[egommer]

If this is true than Gold should be pretty common within the solar system. Why just have it on earth only? Those mars probes should be able to pay for them selves when one lands on the Mother Load. I hereby delcare that all future planatary probes must have a new list of standard gear installed. 1 Rock Hammer 1 Core Driller 1 Portable Strip Mining conveyor belt. 1 Portable Smelter 1 Gold detector (can be modeled after Ivanna Trumps scent glands.) We should start manufacturing mining equipment now on the International Space Station. And add a few Gold Dust collectors to help pay for expenses. Damn this is so easy. The world is gonna be rich!

Re:Gold Rush

[Andreas Bombe]

In theory, as one approached toward the center of such an object, it will look more and more normal because gravity starts to cancel itself out.

The gravity will get less, but me thinks this will be more than made up for by the pressure from the layers above. After all, a sun's core is where the fusion happens (i.e. where the conditions are the most dramatic), even though gravity cancels itself out there. This shouldn't be any different for neutron stars.

More info

[rjamestaylor]

Astronomy Picture of the Day [nasa.gov], yesterday, had a write up about this with great links, including (UNIX optimized) media files (AVIs) of the process (theoretical, not empirical, I'm sure). Those AVIs can be found here [ukaff.ac.uk].

Patentability?

[McQualude]

Maybe I can patent the idea of extracting heavy metals from planetary or solar bodies, thus insuring my grandchildren a fat royalty payment when Mars is strip mined.

Gold Rush

[booser108]

So who do you think will be the first one to mine a neutron star, the Americans, the Russian, or the Chinesse?
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Re:Gold Rush

[Bonker]

So who do you think will be the first one to mine a neutron star, the Americans, the Russian, or the Chinesse?

Actually mining a Neutron star would be... difficult.

First of all, the reason a neutron star is called such is because all the proton and electrons have decayed into neutrons due to the intense gravity. (I'm not sure of the exact physics. Someone clarify for me.) Gold and Platinum won't exist per se on a Neutron star. You'll just have one large, endless sea of nigh-impervious neutron matter.

Second of all, even if you did want to mine Neutronium, the graviational forces that converted the rest of the star's core to neutronium would do the same thing to you once you touched down, assuming the tidal forces of the star's gravity didn't tear your mining ship to shreads on close approach.

The only real way to extract gold and platinum from Neutron stars is to do it the way we have been for thousands of years as has been described in the article, IE: wait for them to collide and explode and then pick through the remnants. Our solar system and planet just happened to have formed out of such a mess, so we have a relatively abundant supply of these minerals on Earth and are likely to have abundant supplies elsewhere in the Solar system.

If we could actually control the collision of two such stars or were able to use energy devices to 'carve' up a neutron star into smaller, more manageable and less destructive chunks, I'm pretty sure that we'd have more to think about than gold or platinum. I'm not sure of the street value of plutonium and uranium or other heavy radioactive elements, but I'm guessing that we'd be looking for those instead to power our mining devices and/or sell to the aliens who don't have nukes yet.

Eureka!

[dreamchaser]

I wonder how long it will be before Corporate America tries to patent this process, in case they have the technology to reproduce it synthetically in a million years or so ;)

Re:Gold Rush

[booser108]

First of all, the reason a neutron star is called such is because all the proton and electrons have decayed into neutrons due to the intense gravity. A neutron is created when a proton and electron merge, forming a slightly larger particle and releasing most of the energy lost in the form of photons. This is caused by intense pressure by gravity, forcing particles to fuse such as hydrogen and helium. The idea of a neutron star is at some point, proton and electron s start fusing together in mass because gravity has reached the point where their is almost no space between particles and electrons have very little to no room to rotate. In theory, as one approached toward the center of such an object, it will look more and more normal because gravity starts to cancel itself out.
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If everybody had a ton of gold...

[gd23ka]

..Gold would be pretty worthless. But who cares.. being in power and calling the shots on "the economy" is enough. Silver bullets being so rare it's usual a lot of lead and iron that keep things that way.

Oh my darling!

[Anonymous Coward]

In a neutron,
Exo-suit on,
Au-scanning for a mine,
Was a miner, 2749'er
And his daughter, Clementine.