Science Fridays: Want an endless supply of Gold? Go to the Kuiper Belt!

Let's take a trip back 4.5 billion years ago when the solar system was forming.  There were many collisions of asteroids and meteors hitting planets, making planets bigger with every hit along with the gases that were settling into planetary atmospheres.  This process was known as accretion.  Every once in a great while, or rather, once in a great great great while, you would have a collision like this:

(from Mike Wall in space.com's article Ancient Crashes)

While this seems incredibly destructive, it actually is part of a theory that is incredibly revealing about Earth's history.  The image above shows a body roughly the size of the moon crashing into Earth at a very high speed, which then cooled off and began an orbit around Earth with only one side facing the Earth.  This body of course is now known as El Luna or the one and only moon.

Besides decreasing the Earth's size slightly, tilting Earth's axis and besides creating our Moon, this crash may have brought metals with it, some of which include gold and platinum.

Gold is luxurious and was the source of a mad populous dash from the eastern half of America to the West.  You can in part thank platinum for reliable dentistry equipment, laboratory equipment, very-much needed fiber optic cables and even helps coat jet engine fuel nozzles.  

There is a trend I'm getting to here.  Elements like gold and platinum coming from space, there are even rocks found in Antarctica coming from Mars.  All this may help someday support a theory called panspermia: that life as we know it did not start on Earth, that it may have come from space.  

Minerals, elements, ancient large crashes, and even modern organisms all coming from somewhere else???  Everything we know may not even be home grown?  I haven't been this disappointed for my home turf since realizing palm trees weren't native to California.

No wonder why we have such a hunger to venture out into space.  We have a hunger to go home.  Next time you pick up a nice golden jewelry or watches, don't think "Thank God for this Earthly element" (Come on, I know you say that), think "Thank God for putting this element on Earth."

Want to read more on ancient crashes into Earth?