#2826: Gold

XKCD comic, described below.
Transcript

[Cueball holding some small sparkling thing, implied to be a gold wedding ring]

Cueball: It kinda makes sense that we use gold for wedding rings.

[Frame shifts to Cueball's head]

Cueball: Because a lot of the universe's gold was probably produced by R-process nucleosynthesis when pairs of neutron stars spiraled together and merged.

Cueball: So gold exists because two neutron stars got married.

[Megan walks in from side towards Cueball]

Megan: "Binary neutron star merger" would be a fun wedding theme.

Cueball: Everyone has to try not to catch the relativistically-ejected bouquet.


(Sourced from explainxkcd.com)

Title text:It can be expensive to hire a professional spectroscopist for your wedding, but the quality of the spectra you get is worth it.


ExplainOriginal