( CNN ) -- Ancient Egyptians buried their dead with it . In 1848 , Americans flocked to California to find it . If you 're over 40 , your dentist may have filled your mouth with it . And Germany wants their 674 tons of it back from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York . Yes , we 're talking gold . Atomic number 79 in the Periodic Table of the Elements , lustrous metal used for jewelry , valuable substance for electronic circuitry . Where does it come from ? New results from studies of a gamma-ray burst -- an extremely energetic , fast explosion , typically from the distant universe -- suggest gold could be created in the collision of two neutron stars , which are kind of like two giant atomic nuclei . CNN : All the world 's gold came from collisions of dead stars . Let 's pause for a chemistry refresher . An atom is made of a tightly bound nucleus of protons ( positively charged ) and neutrons ( uncharged ) , orbited by electrons ( negatively charged ) -- a bit like planets orbiting the Sun , except instead of gravity , the electromagnetic force keeps the electrons orbiting the nucleus . ( Also the laws of quantum mechanics are important -- but that 's another story . ) The identity of an atom is determined primarily by the number of protons it has . Gold has 79 protons , hence , its atomic number . That 's one more than platinum , two more than iridium , three less than lead . Scientists think most of the elements lighter than iron ( atomic number 26 ) were forged in the dense cores of stars much heavier than our Sun . At the end of their lifetimes , these stars explode violently in a supernova , dispersing the newly created elements across interstellar space . In fact , most of the elements that make up your body and everything around you -- other than hydrogen and helium , the two lightest elements -- were made by nuclear fusion inside a star somewhere , long before the Earth formed . Physicists and astronomers figured this out in the last century . However , the heavier elements , including precious metals like gold , silver and platinum , or cell phone ingredients like copper , palladium , zinc , beryllium , and , yes , gold , were not made this way . Instead , these elements were forged in stellar explosions , as extra neutrons and protons were propelled into atomic nuclei . Like modern-day alchemists , nuclear physicists can in principle turn lead into gold using particle accelerators and nuclear reactors ( although it 's easier to turn mercury into gold ) . But do n't get your hopes up . Producing a small amount of gold costs enormously more than it 's worth so this is n't any way to get rich . Obviously , nature makes gold , or miners would n't find it in rocks and streams . But nature does n't manufacture it easily . Indeed , a supernova is more likely to turn gold into lead than the other way around . So now Edo Berger of Harvard University thinks he might know where all this gold came from . Scientists have suspected for a decade that some powerful gamma-ray bursts could result from the collisions of two neutron stars . Because neutron stars are incredibly dense collections of neutrons -- basically , like a bizarre , gigantic , atomic nucleus -- smashing them together is bound to create atoms containing many neutrons and protons , including good old gold . Berger thinks the faint infrared light seen by NASA 's Hubble Space Telescope from a gamma-ray burst detected last month by NASA 's Swift gamma-ray space telescope might come from radioactive decay of heavy elements created in the collision . During the collisions , neutrons captured by lighter nuclei should create such radioactive elements , which can then decay into other elements , producing the infrared light he saw . In addition to lead , thorium , and uranium , one of the ( minor ) by-products should be gold . Could this be where your jewelry came from , the violent collision of two exotic neutron stars ? `` To paraphrase Carl Sagan , '' says Berger , `` We are all star stuff , and our jewelry is colliding-star stuff . '' So next time you put on that necklace , admire a gilded painting , or talk on your cell phone , pause to remember that it came from rare collisions of neutron stars in deep space . And figure that the next gamma-ray burst we discover might just have made as much gold as there is on Earth . The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Meg Urry .
New studies suggest gold could be created in the collision of two neutron stars . Meg Urry : Most elements were made by nuclear fusion inside a star , but not precious metals . The first element to fuse was hydrogen and helium, which are both rare on Earth because they're unstable.