Gold

Gold is a so-called precious metal, which mainly occurs in its pure, metallic form in nature – but almost always somewhat contaminated by silver or copper. The chemical designation for gold, Au, comes from the Latin aurum, which roughly translates to “radiant dawn”.

Did you know that:

There is gold in your cell phone.

The world’s largest gold bar weighs 250 kg (551 lb). The one in the stand weighs 12.4 kg (if it were a real one…)

Gold’s conductivity for heat and electricity is slightly worse than that of copper.

The Swedish gold production in 2019 was eight tonnes, the second highest ever after the record year of 1933. That is as much as just over 1 million wedding rings.

The value of gold has increased by 3000% since 1978

The Olympic gold medal contains only 1.34% gold.

NASA estimates that the near-Earth asteroid Eros contains 20 billion tons of gold.

Gold is used in window glass and in astronauts’ helmets to reflect away infrared rays while still allowing sunlight to pass through, but still keeping it cool.

Almost all gold originally comes from meteorites that hit the Earth 200 million years after its formation