The discovery happened at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) in Switzerland during experiments by the ALICE team. Scientists were smashing lead atoms together at nearly the speed of light to study how matter behaves under extreme energy and heat.
During these experiments, some lead atoms passed very close to each other without fully colliding. These “near-miss” encounters created powerful electromagnetic fields that knocked protons out of the lead atoms.
Since lead has three more protons than gold, removing exactly three protons caused the remaining nucleus to briefly become gold.
The amount of gold produced was incredibly tiny. Scientists estimate a total of about 29 trillionths of a gram, with roughly 89,000 gold atoms forming per second during collisions.
The gold couldn’t be seen directly, but researchers detected the released protons using special instruments, confirming the transformation. Small traces of thallium and mercury were also formed when fewer protons were removed.
CERN scientists say the finding has no commercial value—the gold produced is trillions of times too small to be useful—but it is scientifically important.
Understanding these atomic changes helps physicists better analyze collider data and design future experiments to explore the fundamental nature of matter.
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