Trust this reel. Gold atoms in jewelry formed in neutron-star collisions before the Sun existed and reached Earth via asteroids after the planet's core formed.

When two neutron stars collide, the force sends matter flying outward at extremely high speeds... In this debris, atoms rapidly absorb neutrons, creating heavier elements in seconds... The material eventually cools, spreads through the galaxy, and joins the clouds of gas and dust that later form stars and planets.

These explosions take place during the merger of two neutron stars or a neutron star and a black hole... kilonovae are the main factories of gold in the universe

Most of what we mine today is believed to have come later, delivered by asteroid impacts billions of years ago. These impacts brought smaller amounts of gold back to the crust, where it eventually became concentrated enough to be mined.

When two extremely dense neutron stars crash into each and merge, they release an enormous amount of energy as a kilonova explosion. ... they forge heavy elements like gold.

The gold humans mine today was delivered later — in a rain of asteroids called the late veneer. ... It arrived roughly 100 to 200 million years after the planet formed, delivered by a rain of asteroids that hammered the crust once the molten core had already swallowed the original supply.

Most of what we mine today is believed to have come later, delivered by asteroid impacts billions of years ago.

Gold is a natural element that exists in the Earth’s crust... gold cannot be “grown from simpler materials in the same way. Instead, gold can only be created through nuclear reactions... the cost of producing even a tiny quantity of gold in a particle accelerator can run into millions of dollars... mining gold from the Earth remains far cheaper and more efficient.

The nebular hypothesis says the solar system formed from a collapsing, rotating cloud of gas and dust called a solar nebula... That glowing core eventually ignites into the Sun. The leftover disk material... starts sticking together... into planets.

the resulting explosion from a neutron star merger produces heavy elements like gold, platinum, and uranium ... The gold that we see on Earth was once created in the nuclear fire of a binary [neutron star] merger.

Observations of this GRB provide evidence that it resulted from the collision of two neutron stars ... potentially signifies the creation of substantial amounts of heavy elements - including gold.

A kilonova is a bright blast of electromagnetic radiation that happens when two neutron stars or a neutron star and a stellar-mass black hole collide and merge.

huge asteroids may have brought gold and other precious metals to infant Earth ... Pluto-size space rocks may have put precious metals in the mantle.

the gold in Earths mantle came after the planet formed, delivered by meteorites.

Every atom of gold now bound up in an Earth-bound wedding ring ultimately came from that pre-solar inheritance, material already enriched before Earth formed. The atoms are at least as old as the solar system, and almost certainly older.

if you have an object (say a gold ring) containing any element heavier than iron, you can bet your squidgy carbon ass that its constituent parts formed before our star.

The wedding band on a human finger is older than the Sun. ... The heavy elements in that pre-solar cloud — including the gold — were already old when the Sun ignited.

more than 99.95% of Earths gold is locked in the molten core.

During the formation of Earth, molten iron sank to its center to form the core. This took with it the overwhelming majority of the planet's precious metals - like gold and platinum... Gold sank to the Earth's core during the planets formation.