Gold has fascinated humans for thousands of years. It's shiny, valuable, and surprisingly everywhere, even if you don't always see it. For example, the world's largest gold bar weighs a staggering 550 pounds. That's heavier than most people and definitely more than anyone wants to carry around.

Even our own bodies have a little bit of gold. Each of us contains about 0.2 milligrams of it, mostly in our blood. So technically, you are carrying around a tiny fortune, though not enough to buy a mansion.

Earth itself works like a giant gold factory. Geologists have discovered that earthquakes can turn water into gold because of the intense pressure and chemical reactions underground. And if you've ever wondered how much gold humans have dug up, imagine this. All the gold ever mined would fit into just three and a half Olympic-sized swimming pools. That's it.

Gold also hides in surprising places. Olympic gold medals, the ones everyone dreams of winning, only contain 1.34 percent gold. The rest is mostly silver. So athletes are basically holding fancy, expensive silver medals. Meanwhile, the world's oceans contain nearly 20 million tons of gold, but it's too diluted to collect easily, so don't quit your day job to pan seawater.

Gold has a cosmic backstory too. Nearly all of the gold on Earth came from meteorites that bombarded the planet more than 200 million years after it formed. And deep down in the Earth's core, there is enough gold to coat the entire surface to a depth of 1.5 feet. Imagine the planet sparkling like a giant disco ball.

Gold is part of modern life too. Apple probably uses between 7 and 9 metric tons of gold every year just to make iPhones. At current prices, that's about 1.2 billion dollars worth of gold. So the next time you tap your screen, remember that your phone contains a tiny fortune.

And for a little intrigue, the world's governments have secret stashes as well. About one-fifth of all the gold held by governments, worth around 248 billion dollars, is stored beneath the streets of London. Next time you walk around the city, think about all that treasure lying quietly under your feet.



Gold might seem simple, just a shiny metal we use for jewelry, medals, and electronics, but its story stretches from the center of the Earth to outer space, through oceans and human bodies, and into the gadgets we use every day. That is why gold will always capture our imagination.

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Until next time,
Randy at Random Facts
Always Random. Never Boring