<Tr> <Td_colspan="2"> <Ul> <Li> view </Li> <Li> talk </Li> <Li> </Li> </Ul> references in Wikidata </Td> </Tr> <Ul> <Li> view </Li> <Li> talk </Li> <Li> </Li> </Ul> <P> Gold is a chemical element with symbol Au (from Latin: aurum) and atomic number 79 . In its purest form, it is a bright, slightly reddish yellow, dense, soft, malleable, and ductile metal . Chemically, gold is a transition metal and a group 11 element . It is one of the least reactive chemical elements and is solid under standard conditions . Gold often occurs in free elemental (native) form, as nuggets or grains, in rocks, in veins, and in alluvial deposits . It occurs in a solid solution series with the native element silver (as electrum) and also naturally alloyed with copper and palladium . Less commonly, it occurs in minerals as gold compounds, often with tellurium (gold tellurides). </P> <P> Gold is thought to have been produced in supernova nucleosynthesis, from the collision of neutron stars, and to have been present in the dust from which the Solar System formed . Because the Earth was molten when it was formed, almost all of the gold present in the early Earth probably sank into the planetary core . Therefore, most of the gold that is in the Earth's crust and mantle is thought to have been delivered to Earth later, by asteroid impacts during the Late Heavy Bombardment, about 4 billion years ago . </P>

Is pure gold an element or a compound