All gold comes from supernovas: it takes an exploding star many many times the size of our sun to create elements that heavy.
In 1999 the NEAR spacecraft showed that the asteroid Eros contains more gold than has yet been found on Earth.
Gold was probably the first metal worked by prehistoric man - people have actually been working gold as far back as the Stone Age.
Researchers have discovered that some bacteria eat trace amounts of gold in rocks and then excrete them into larger nuggets. Mining companies are looking into environmentally friendly ways of using these little guys to pull gold from ore.
Gold is virtually indestructible, and over 85% of the gold ever found is still in use today (most of the rest has been...temporarily misplaced).
A thin gold film covers astronauts' visors, to protect their eyes from glare.
South Africa is still the world's leading gold-producing country, and Witwatersrand is the world's richest gold field.
