Gold is a pretty valued commodity on earth, fetching nearly $42,000 (£31,704) a kilo. If you see a gold ring or watch you immediately think it's worth a decent amount of coin. But to acquire that gold, you have to dig into the earth and there's a finite amount of it on our lovely planet.
Well, there is a huge amount of it now in space, after two neutron stars collided with each other about 130 million light years away.
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The collision was so huge that both light and gravitational waves have been detected at NASA's Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory (LIGO).
Credit: NASA/Caltech
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NASA's Astrophysics Division Director Paul Hertz said in a statement: "This is extremely exciting science. Now, for the first time, we've seen light and gravitational waves produced by the same event.
"The detection of a gravitational-wave source's light has revealed details of the event that cannot be determined from gravitational waves alone. The multiplier effect of study with many observatories is incredible."
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Gravitational waves were detected for the first time at LIGO in 2015, which saw the leaders of the project awarded this year's Nobel Physics Prize. But the observatory was only able to monitor the gravitational waves stemming from the collision of the two black holes. This latest discovery is the first time it's been seen between neutron stars as well as the first time it's been 'seen' through a gamma-ray telescope.
A neutron star is the leftover core of what used to be a massive star that had exploded as supernovas.
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LIGO Chief Executive David Reitze said: "This is the one we've all been waiting for. Neutron star mergers produce a wide variety of light because the objects form a maelstrom of hot debris when they collide.
"Merging black holes -- the types of events LIGO and its European counterpart, Virgo, have previously seen -- very likely consume any matter around them long before they crash, so we don't expect the same kind of light show."
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It's believed that when the two stars smashed into each other, it caused an explosion of gold, platinum and lead.
For years, scientists have speculated that these types of massive events are the cosmic source of these heavy metals. Researchers say this particular collision produced 10 earth masses worth of enough gold and uranium.
So if you're hunting around for your next bit of gold bling, hop in a spacecraft, chuck it into warp speed and travel a casual 130 million light years away to pick some up.
Featured Image Credit: NASA
