A supernova announces the end of a star whose mass is several times greater than that of our Sun. Thanks to the nuclear reactions produced in its interior, a star of this type has created different chemical elements: oxygen, nitrogen, carbon, iron. .. The end of his life is approaching when iron has formed inside him. In this situation, with nothing to support the weight of the star, it collapses. Then it explodes, becoming a supernova. The tremendous explosion lasts two seconds and makes the star as bright as all the stars in the galaxy combined.
It is in this unique and cataclysmic moment that gold forms, something that happens in our galaxy every 25 years. That is why gold is so scarce: if we put together all that we have been extracting from the interior of the Earth since the beginning of time, we would only fill a cube measuring 15 meters on a side.
Until recently, only gold had been found in the atmosphere of our Sun. Today everything has changed. The new space mine is a star located in the halo that surrounds our galaxy and named BD + 17 3248, located 2,500 light-years away. Silver, platinum and radioactive elements such as thorium or uranium have also been found in it. An appetizing mine considering that, at the current exchange rate, the amount of gold it contains would be worth more than 7,000 trillion euros.
And even more interesting: it is very likely that it is the first shipment of gold that was created in our galaxy.
