Gold
Gold is a chemical element with symbol Au (from Latin: aurum) and atomic number 79.
Description
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.
It is one of the least reactive chemical elements, and is solid under standard conditions. The metal therefore occurs often in free elemental (native) form, as nuggets or grains, in rocks, in veins and in alluvial deposits.
It occurs in a solid solution series with the native element silver (as electrum) and also naturally alloyed with copper and palladium.
Less commonly, it occurs in minerals as gold compounds, often with tellurium (gold tellurides).
Supernova origin
Gold's atomic number of 79 makes it one of the higher atomic number elements that occur naturally in the universe.
It is thought to have been produced in supernova nucleosynthesis from the collision of two neutron stars and to have been present in the dust from which the Solar System formed.
See also
External links
- [Gold] @ Wikipedia
