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| Great wahrks! Vast bling-bling! |
| 2004-02-25 |
| If anyone ever promises you the sun, the moon and the stars, just say âno thanksâ and tell them youâd rather have BPM 37093. Why? Because the heart of that burned-out star is a diamond that weighs in at a staggering 10 billion trillion carats. Never mind how much thatâs worth, just think of the lifetimes of bling you could mine from 2500 miles of diamond craters. :jawdrop: âYou would need a jewellerâs loupe [magnifying glass] the size of the sun to grade this diamond,â said astronomer Travis Metcalfe, who led the team of American researchers who found the cosmic gem. Scientists have suspected for 40 years that the interior of a white dwarf, the hot core left in space after a star burns all its fuel and dies, is crystallised. But Star Wars fans know that⊠âThe hunt for the crystal core of this white dwarf has been going on for decades but obtaining direct evidence only became possible recently,â said Michael Montgomery, the co-author of the paper announcing the discovery. By measuring pulsations from the dead star, scientists were able to study its interior in much the same way as geologists study the Earthâs core with seismographic data. The carbon core of BMP 37093, the scientists figured, had solidified into a giant diamond. Apart from the fact it canât be gift-wrapped, the gem presents another problem â it is 50 light years away in the constellation Centaurus. Thatâs around six trillion miles every year for 50 years. Amazingly, because it is burned out, this diamond does not sparkle at night. It is not even visible to the human eye. But this burned-out husk completely outshines the largest diamond on Earth, the 530-carat Star of Africa, the centrepiece of the British crown jewels. The gem was cut from the largest diamond ever found on Earth, a 3100-carat stone. Itâs my Precioussss! |
| Posted by:Steve from Relto |
| #18 Charles> Diamond is the hardest material known, I believe. That's a use that gives value to diamond besides their rarity. In Arthur Clarke's "Space Odyssey: 2010", Jupiter is turned into a sun, and Jupiter's diamond core explodes outwards, IIRC. The pieces are then taken by humans and used to construct a space elevator, which would indeed required the hardest material known to man. Current ideas for such space elevators try to find a substitute, like nanotubes: More Info here |
| Posted by: Aris Katsaris 2004-2-25 9:39:35 PM |
| #17 Wonder if we'll see some Martian trying to shove this thing up his ass to smuggle it out of the solar system? |
| Posted by: tu3031 2004-2-25 9:18:59 PM |
| #16 Apparently it may not be very pure, it could be about 50% O, 50% C, according to these spoilsports. NS claims the solid core's mass is about 90% the mas of the Sun (0.9*1.989E30kg) & aunty beeb claim the core's diameter may be ~ 2000 km, IF they're right (& any info from the beeb's science & tech pages need to be taken with large doses on NaCl then it's gravity'll be about 3 million times that on Earth's surface. As has been said already, DeBeers don't need to worry yet. |
| Posted by: Dave 2004-2-25 7:04:33 PM |
| #15 B- At least until she died of intoxication from the Great Nebula's lovely donation of booze. (Roar, twenties. Roar!) |
| Posted by: Miss Gunn 2004-2-25 6:57:51 PM |
| #14 So Lucy really was in the sky with diamonds. |
| Posted by: B 2004-2-25 6:38:18 PM |
| #13 Why can't they find an oil planet for chainney to colonise? |
| Posted by: Napoleon VII 2004-2-25 4:31:23 PM |
| #12 "I didn't forget your birthday at all, honey. There's your diamond up there. The largest one there is. Look, you can see it through this telescope. And you never have to worry about anyone stealing it." |
| Posted by: Christopher Johnson 2004-2-25 4:13:53 PM |
| #11 Hmmmmmmm... I noticed the article didn't give the gravity of that little gem. I'd suspect it's somewhere around 82 to 125 times that of Earth. If you weighed 200 pounds, you'd weigh a ton at 10 times the force of gravity - consider what you'd weigh at 100 times! I doubt DeBeers has to worry about anybody mining that rock any time soon. |
| Posted by: Old Patriot 2004-2-25 3:50:12 PM |
| #10 I'm thinking that's what Debeers' space program would be, actually. "Fire!" |
| Posted by: eLarson 2004-2-25 3:33:36 PM |
| #9 Doesn't this defeat the purpose of Diamonds? Diamonds are valuable because they are rare, but if we have a Diamond bigger than the planet, won't dirt be more valuable? Canada would become richer than us! On the bright side, we won't have to wait 1,000 years before making a Death Star. |
| Posted by: Charles 2004-2-25 3:13:58 PM |
| #8 I expect that Debeers will be working out their own space program now. |
| Posted by: eLarson 2004-2-25 2:20:12 PM |
| #7 I'd like to see if they can find one of these rocks in a binary system with an active and bright partner.... might be something to see. Come to think of it a diamond lens might explain a few of the weirder variable stars. |
| Posted by: Shipman 2004-2-25 2:11:46 PM |
| #6 Smoove B promises to put that diamond on a ring for the girl he just screwed around on. If she does not find it suitable, he will search the cosmos for the burned-out star diamond which pleases her. There will also be an assortment of dark chocolates. Aw girl. |
| Posted by: BH 2004-2-25 1:26:07 PM |
| #5 By the way, there are billions of tons of booze in the Great Nebula in Orion. So we can keep our diamond miners all liquered up. Space is sounding more like the roaring twenties than Star Trek. |
| Posted by: David 2004-2-25 12:37:15 PM |
| #4 It's Bush's fault. He knew all along that that star was there and could bring us incredible wealth and rescue us from our spending ways...But noooooooo he has to do something stupid like defend the USA and waste all that valuable time. Go Dubya. |
| Posted by: dataman1 2004-2-25 12:19:30 PM |
| #3 Here it comes, the claim that the mouse-people have WMDs and al-Qaeda ties. They'll fight a war for diamonds and finish making America a dictatorsjip and I'll never get my bong back. |
| Posted by: Halfempty 2004-2-25 11:55:18 AM |
| #2 Don't give the Jews any ideas! |
| Posted by: Yasser Arafat 2004-2-25 11:49:52 AM |
| #1 Think of the Death Ray you could build with a 10 billion trillion carat diamond! |
| Posted by: Steve 2004-2-25 11:25:59 AM |