Pop quiz! What's the 79th element on the periodic table? Could it be... love? No. Of course not. It's Gold! Striking this magnificent mineral is something of a rite of passage in Minecraft. After spending ages mining through cobblestone and coal, you finally see a shiny gleam winking at you from inside the rocks. A few whacks with your pick later, you've struck gold! (Ore!) Said gold ore can then be smelted into shining nuggets of success. This mineral has multiple crafting uses in the game, like clocks and powered rails. Sadly, the golden mining tools you can craft with it may be powerful, but they also break quickly.
Shame, as real gold has a huge amount of uses. But where did it all come from? It could be deep space, according to a 2013 study from the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, which concluded all of the gold in our universe likely originated from the collisions of dead stars. Some of that gold even finds its way back into space, as astronaut helmets have a visor coated with a thin layer of gold, to block harmful ultraviolet rays from the sun. Whether astronauts actually need those helmets or this is just an ingenious scam to steal gold from work is a debate for another time.
As if originating from dead stars in space isn't awesome enough (it is), gold is often used in circuitry, as it's an excellent conductor of electricity. One that's highly non-reactive with air, water and most other circuitry-ruining substances, meaning it won't corrode or tarnish. We wouldn't recommend smashing it open to find out, but the very device you're reading this on could be powered by gold circuitry!
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