No naquada on Earth.

[Aer'ki]

I've always assumed, though it's never been said, that the reason why Earth has no naquada while it is common throughout the rest of the galaxy is because Earth or Avalon was the home of the Ancients and that they used up all of Avalon's naquada building the stargate network along with other technology.

Anyone else thinking along similar lines?

[Crazy Tom]

Add the goa'uld on top of that.

[TrueLordOfNetu]

I also think that there was Naquadah on Earth at one point. The Ancients used it in almost all of their tech as so would surely choose a planet with a plentiful supply to settle on. Also, I always figured that Ra had a Naquadah mine in Egypt. So between the Ancients and the Goa'uld, Earth could easily have been picked clean of it's Naquadah before we were left alone.

[Splitsecond]

Perhaps the Ancients didn't like living around naquada. It could have been for health and safety issues, social issues, a popular health scare or many other reasons. As a result they settled on the first hospitable planet which was naturally devoid of naquadah. Remember that there is no naquadah in any part of our solar system. It's very unlikely that the Ancients and Goa'uld would have completely cleared our solar system when almost all other solar systems still have a bountiful supply.

[lordofseas]

Well, they could have used the naquadah on Earth to make the stargates in the galaxy, and then some more technology.

[K^2]

Do they ever explain what naquada is? I mean in terms of chemistry/physics of the stuff.

Most of the elements are not equally distributed throughout the galaxy. There are plenty of stellar systems out there with nothing but gas giants in them. There is very little of anything besides hydrogen and helium on these worlds, just like in the most of the universe. Rocky worlds, like ours, have to form from remains of dead stars. Type of event that caused mass ejection will determine the content and abundance of heavy elements. Simple coronal ejection of a dying red giant, for example, will not contain anything heavier than iron. Anything beyond that has to come from a massive supernova event. Nearly everything on this planet has once been part of a star or stars that have exploded rather violently.

Knowing a little bit more about naquada, I might have some ideas for why its abundance varies so much.

[thekillman]

simple. ancients terraformed planets naturally rich in the stuff, while planets without it were used in possibly other ways.

[Splitsecond]

Do they ever explain what naquada is? I mean in terms of chemistry/physics of the stuff.

Most of the elements are not equally distributed throughout the galaxy. There are plenty of stellar systems out there with nothing but gas giants in them. There is very little of anything besides hydrogen and helium on these worlds, just like in the most of the universe. Rocky worlds, like ours, have to form from remains of dead stars. Type of event that caused mass ejection will determine the content and abundance of heavy elements. Simple coronal ejection of a dying red giant, for example, will not contain anything heavier than iron. Anything beyond that has to come from a massive supernova event. Nearly everything on this planet has once been part of a star or stars that have exploded rather violently.

Knowing a little bit more about naquada, I might have some ideas for why its abundance varies so much.

They've never explained it properly. Also it is apparently abundant everywhere apart from our solar system.

[Crazy Tom]

They've never explained it properly. Also it is apparently abundant everywhere apart from our solar system.

I don't think that was ever said.

[Quadhelix]

Also it is apparently abundant everywhere apart from our solar system.

Not necessarily: there are about 100-200 stars in the Milky Way for each possible 'Gate address. Since most 'Gate addresses are "red links," this means that there are probably ~1,000-1,000,000 stars for each actual Stargate. This means that even if every active 'Gate were on a planet with Naquada deposits (and there are many, many planets seen in the show without such deposits), there would still be an untold number that may or may not have Naquada on them: after all, if Naquada is a relatively rare and valuable mineral, then planets with Naquada on them would probably have a priority as worlds to receive a Stargate in order to make mining the substance easier.

Thus, it is quite likely that most star systems do not have a natural abundance of Naquada.

[peragrin]

i like my idea better.

All of earth's limited trinimum and Naquada where used up n the construction of Atlantis. Earth is Terra Atlantus in Ancient, the Cit of Atlantis would mean it was on Earth for a long time, and I like the idea that it was built here as well.

[Aer'ki]

Do they ever explain what naquada is? I mean in terms of chemistry/physics of the stuff.

Most of the elements are not equally distributed throughout the galaxy. There are plenty of stellar systems out there with nothing but gas giants in them. There is very little of anything besides hydrogen and helium on these worlds, just like in the most of the universe. Rocky worlds, like ours, have to form from remains of dead stars. Type of event that caused mass ejection will determine the content and abundance of heavy elements. Simple coronal ejection of a dying red giant, for example, will not contain anything heavier than iron. Anything beyond that has to come from a massive supernova event. Nearly everything on this planet has once been part of a star or stars that have exploded rather violently.

Knowing a little bit more about naquada, I might have some ideas for why its abundance varies so much.

We don't know that for a fact. A few decades ago we didn't know that there were planets outside our own star system. Right now, we can only find the really big planets in other star systems because of the gravitational tug they put on the stars.

There may very well be small rocky worlds in the Proxima System, the closest star system to us, but because they don't have enough pull to tug on the star enough for us to measure, we're not going to detect them.

So don't assume that there is a statistical bias toward light element planets out there.

As for what naquada is, they have said it is very heavy. I would imagine that it is one of the missing elements from the periodic table. If any of you had noticed, they mislabeled the numbers. There are many element possibilities on the left half of the table that are skipped over because we don't have them on Earth(that we've found). Naquada might be one of these.

I would highly bet that it was, because in order to get higher on the periodic table, it would probably have to be radioactive, which it isn't in stargate. Then again, maybe there are stable elements larger than plutonium that we don't know about.

[Crazy Tom]

A bit off topic, but on the subject of where's we've been getting the naq to build our ships and stuff, there was that big naq-core asteroid, then there was the entirety of Anubis's fleet, whose fragments were most likely recyclable.

[Splitsecond]

We don't know that for a fact. A few decades ago we didn't know that there were planets outside our own star system. Right now, we can only find the really big planets in other star systems because of the gravitational tug they put on the stars.

There may very well be small rocky worlds in the Proxima System, the closest star system to us, but because they don't have enough pull to tug on the star enough for us to measure, we're not going to detect them.

So don't assume that there is a statistical bias toward light element planets out there.

As for what naquada is, they have said it is very heavy. I would imagine that it is one of the missing elements from the periodic table. If any of you had noticed, they mislabeled the numbers. There are many element possibilities on the left half of the table that are skipped over because we don't have them on Earth(that we've found). Naquada might be one of these.

I would highly bet that it was, because in order to get higher on the periodic table, it would probably have to be radioactive, which it isn't in stargate. Then again, maybe there are stable elements larger than plutonium that we don't know about.

There are no missing elements in the periodic table up to the latest confirmed element, which will probably be called copericium, which is element 112. The gap that I think you are referring to is due to the rare earth metals group normally being set aside from the main group of elements for classification reasons.

[TrueLordOfNetu]

The problem that I have is that Naquadah is stated to be both an element and a superconductor. As far as I am aware, all superconductive materials must be compounds and so a superconductive single element makes no sense.