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Not sure if here or physics is the best place for this question, but if there was a meteor that had gold in it, what happens to that metal during entry of the Earth's atmosphere? Since gold melts at 1948° F (1046°C) and boils at 5378° F (2970°C), and Space.com says a meteor reaches about 3000° F (1650 °C) on average, even if that's just the surface temp, some gold would liquify (I think). I'm guessing depending on the angle of entry, it could retain enough velocity to leave the atmosphere, but I think at least it some cases, it could rain down as either liquid or solid gold and would be gold meteorites.

gerrit
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    No meteorites made of or containing native Gold ever found. Current hypotheses for how asteroids form don't include any processes that would concentrate Gold into veins, grains or nuggets; what little Gold there is is dissolved/alloyed within Nickel Iron. Metallic meteorites are invariably Nickel-Iron with other metals mixed in. – Ken Fabian Apr 14 '21 at 22:26
  • @KenFabian things that are never found don't always stay that way. No object was ever been seen originating from outside our solar system, until suddenly two were recently for example. Nobody knows exactly what metals are in the asteroid 16 Psyche that will explored, we'll have to wait and see. https://psyche.asu.edu/ But in the future if crazy space miners want to send a piece back to Earth it might be as a meteor. – uhoh Apr 14 '21 at 22:29
  • @KenFabian Psyche appears to be an exposed metallic core or a fragment of a metallic core from a larger differentiated parent body some 500 kilometers in diameter. I'm no expert, but I think that the idea is that during the solar system's evolution there were more rocky planets than there are today. Perhaps one had gold veins, grains, or nuggets? – uhoh Apr 14 '21 at 22:36
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    The answers to this space.stackexchange question could be relevant - https://space.stackexchange.com/questions/27329/can-we-expect-to-find-pure-iron-or-only-nickel-iron-alloys-in-asteroids – Ken Fabian Apr 14 '21 at 22:44
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    @uhoh - sampling Psyche will be interesting and yes, material formed by processes that don't happen in solar system formation can come from elsewhere, so no, I won't say impossible. But geological processes that concentrate gold into veins and nuggets within Earth appear incompatible with the processes forming the asteroids. Active geology over long time frames, with magmatic and hydrothermal processes are believed necessary and whatever got smashed up for asteroids weren't big enough long enough. Most gold ends up dissolved in nickel-iron. – Ken Fabian Apr 15 '21 at 21:26
  • @KenFabian Can't there be asteroids that are fragments of Earth-sized planets that have not survive to the present day? It sounds like you don't think so but I don't see how that can be known either way. I'll see if I can find a right way to ask that as a new question rather than try to do it here in comments. It seems like Astronomy SE will be the best place for it. – uhoh Apr 15 '21 at 23:22
  • @uhoh if your question is "can you have gold nuggets or veins in asteroids", the best place would be ES.SE, because that's where the people who know the answer hang out. tl;dr: no. – Gimelist Apr 17 '21 at 11:04
  • @Gimelist I'm really interested in asteroids that may come from the breakup of rocky, Earth-like planets that were destroyed long ago as the solar system evolved. We don't really know what's in all of the asteroids, every time a probe goes to an astronomical body what's discovered is that it's very different than what was thought. So while there may be theories, if people who hang out here believe they "know" the answer (rather than simply are aware of trending theories) then this may not be the right place to ask. – uhoh Apr 17 '21 at 14:14
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    Very often, the surprising things that are found are not in contrary with the things that we already know. They're usually in the realm of "we know it's theoretically possible, we just didn't think it would be there". Having gold in one of those is safely in realm of "most likely not even possible". In geology (and exogeology) we never say never, but someone has to put a line somewhere on what is even remotely plausible. – Gimelist Apr 17 '21 at 14:17
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    @uhoh and to follow up on this, there are many processes that lead to the formation of extreme concentrations of gold on Earth. These require unique processes that can only happen on Earth, and not on any other rocky planets that we know of. You can envisage gold being volatile on Venus for example (vapour pressure at 450 C) and condensing as the pure element somewhere because of whatever catalysis reaction we haven't though of before, but it's very much unlikely. – Gimelist Apr 17 '21 at 14:20
  • @Gimelist okay you are getting me really interested. Okay I'll think of a way to write this as a question that will yield interesting answers. Thanks! – uhoh Apr 17 '21 at 14:25
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    Asteroids like phyche 16 were probably results of collisions, like Theia. – Tardy Apr 19 '21 at 12:56
  • Psyche (not phyche) is not a meteor, it is an asteroid or a minor planet. And what has she to do with gold and how do we know ? What is a "golden meteor" anyway ? Btw., °F are likely to attract unsciency answers, K or °C are the units we use. –  Apr 19 '21 at 23:25
  • @Earthworm do you have any evidence you can cite supporting " °F are likely to attract unsciency answers" or is that just Stack Exchange mythology? – uhoh Apr 19 '21 at 23:31
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    I reverted the edit to the title for the reasons cited by @Earthworm - "golden meteor" is ambiguous, and the typo in "Psyche". – Gimelist Apr 19 '21 at 23:36
  • @uhoh n=1, but me, a scientist, is less likely to answer questions asked with nonstandard units. – Gimelist Apr 19 '21 at 23:37
  • @uhoh: no need to make it controversal. SI units are the standard and people are used to it. My grandma's marvellous cooking recipes are in really strange units and rightly so. Makes them mysterious. Natural science uses SI and to my limited knowledge nobody questions this, at least not in an overregional context. Isn't it the standard in here ? –  Apr 20 '21 at 11:37
  • @Earthworm questions that can attract low quality answers (like an unclear question or one who's answers are primarily opinion based) are close-able for that reason. So the language "are likely to attract unsciency answers" reads like a close reason. This is Stack Exchange, open to everyone. There are no site rules saying all questions must conform to a specific scale or set of units. No, there is no official standard here about temperature. It's okay if the OP used F. If anyone was good-willed they'd simply edit and add either C or K and leave the F in parenthesis. – uhoh Apr 20 '21 at 15:13
  • I come to the conclusion that this needs to be sent back to space exploration due to this question not having any word "Earth" or not noting any substance that only happens on Earth. – Tardy Apr 22 '21 at 00:24

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As it melted, it would be broken up into a spray or even a mist by the airstream. The droplets would quickly slow down to their terminal velocity and solidify, so you would get a fine gold dust imperceptibly falling over a wide area.

I am basing this on my admittedly incomplete understanding of meteors that do not contain gold. When the one in Russia some years ago exploded, it didn't vaporize, but only so many pieces were found.

Mark Foskey
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Would a gold-containing meteor cause it to “rain” gold?

No.

First, it is a bit unclear what do you mean by "gold-containing meteor". All solar system bodies have gold, the question is how much. For this answer I will assume that you mean a meteorite with chunks of visible gold nuggets in it, nothing that this is a hypothetical concept as no such meteorites are known or expected.

Meteors, when in space, are very very very very cold. Their travel duration in Earth's atmosphere is very short, just a couple of seconds. Actual melting only occurs at the very most outer layer of the meteorite. This is not sufficient to heat up the interior of the meteorite to any significant degree. In fact, some meteorite falls have found to have frost on them when found soon after landing, because they condense the moisture in the air around them! Some meteorites still contain organic material which would be destroyed at much lower temperature than the melting point of gold.

Gimelist
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