Gold is a chemical element with symbol Au (from Latin:aurum) and atomic number 79. In its purest form, it is a bright, slightly reddish yellow, dense, soft, malleable and ductile metal. Chemically, gold is a transition metal and a group 11 element.
Three reasons Gold stands out
- 1
Highly valued for its rarity and use in jewelry.
- 2
It is the most malleable metal — a single gram can be beaten into a sheet covering roughly one square metre.
- 3
All the gold on Earth was forged in ancient neutron star collisions and delivered to our planet by asteroid impacts.
A metal shaped in dying stars
Gold’s warm color comes from relativistic effects on its electrons, not merely from surface tarnish. It conducts reliably without corroding and can be beaten into extraordinarily thin leaf. Much of the universe’s gold was forged in violent neutron-rich events before becoming part of Earth.