A Diamond Bigger than Earth Discovered in Constellation Centaurus -A Galaxy Classic

Like an episode out of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, The Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics has announced the discovery of a mass of crystallized carbon formerly known as star BPM 37093, now known as the biggest diamond in the galaxy, fifty light years away from Earth in the constellation Centaurus.

The star, named "Lucy" after the Beatles song, "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds," is estimated to be 2,500 miles across and weighs approximately 10 billion-trillion-trillion-carats – a one, followed by 34 zeros. Travis Metcalfe, an astronomer from the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics and leader of the team who discovered the gem, says “You would need a jeweler’s loupe the size of the sun to grade this diamond. Bill Gates and Donald Trump together couldn’t begin to afford it.”

The diamond is actually the crystallized interior of a white dwarf – or the hot core of a star that is left over after the star uses up its nuclear fuel and dies. It is made mostly of carbon and is coated by a thin layer of hydrogen and helium gases.

Five billion years from now, our sun will die and become a white dwarf. Approximately two billion years after that, its ember core will crystallize as well, leaving a giant diamond in the center of our solar system. A paper announcing this discovery has been submitted to The Astrophysical Journal Letters for publication. The Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics is a joint collaboration between the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory and the Harvard College Observatory. Scientists within the organization are classified into six research divisions where they study the origin, evolution and ultimate fate of the universe.

Posted by Casey Kazan

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Comments

[James]

It's NOT "Bigger than the Earth". The Earth's diameter at the Equator is 7,926.28 miles (12756.1 km), far bigger than the 2,500 miles quoted.

The moon's diameter is 2140 miles (3476 km), so you could say it's "Bigger than the Moon".

[James]

Oops, I mistyped. It should read, "You couldn't even say it's "Bigger than the Moon"."

Sorry.

[Easypants]

Who cares that it's not bigger than the earth... the point of the story is it is f**king huge you damn nerd!!!

[Zaratustra]

Once you start commenting on the site that has news of giant diamonds in space you can't call anyone a huge nerd anymore.

[sunderajan]

Doubt whether the entire core crystallizes

[Steve]

yeah, I bet the people at the Harvard-Smithsonian are wrong and you (james) are right. That seems logical, idiot.

[Ben]

Why do you doubt it crystalizes? What else would it do?

It is not going to continue to stay molten or gasous if there is no source of fuel. I've never been to space, but I am pretty sure it's colder than the earth, so the carbon will crystalize.

[Ben]

Oh yeah, and James. It is bigger than the earth...in mass. The earth is 2.9871 × 10^28 carats and the diamond is 1 x 10^33 carats.

[achow]

Great! I think I'll get it for my girl friend's ring.

[Andy]

Knowing my misses, it still wouldn't be enough :p

[Adam]

you're all bonkers!

[Rafael]

The comment regarding the cost is absurd because the cost of diamonds is related to the availability of the stone. Diamonds are not actually special nor valuable as their value is inflated artificially by De Beers. This is done by controlling access to diamonds. A diamond that size would actually make diamonds extremely low cost.

[B-dog]

Disagreeing with current 'experts' doesn't make one an idiot. Most of the important astronomical discoveries have gone against the grain of traditional scientific thought at the time they were made. This led to the discoverer being considered an idiot for a number of years before the new idea was accepted...

And yes, I am a nerd

[Robert]

I'm pretty sure this is a joke... a lot of incorrect information if its fact

[Michael]

Rafael, the comment is absurd, but funnily still true:

Think of the shipping cost.

[James]

Talking about shipping cost... is this E-Bay?

[Bling Bling]

Don't let the blacks get a hold of this, every monkey from Florida to Long Beach will have diamond necklaces and grills.

[tcane]

bling bling, that's funny. that's the only reason i wanna comment.

[xibit]

pimp my solar system with that shit!

[Dean D]

It would take voyager 1 which is traveling at 38000 mph ~881,052
years to reach that star, so why do we care whats going on 100's trillions miles away?

[Karma]

Shipping time - At least if it's 881,052 years away, we'd be able to afford it in small yearly down-payments... It's not like the girl's not already whining it's taking a million years for that special ring to appear... am I right? ;)

[Cherie22984]

I cant wait to see one of the rappers wear some of the space bling. Imagine earing bigger than their heads.

[Lazarus]

It would be graphite and not a diamond, graphite has a lower entropy, the people at the Smithsonian should know that

[Lazarus]

It would be graphite and not a diamond, graphite has a lower entropy, the people at the Smithsonian should know that

[Jeb Thrumond]

Just the latest nonsense from the agenda-oriented scienceism community. It goes like this:

America: "You scientists lie about evolution, you lie about global warming, you lie about cigarettes causing cancer, how do you expect us to believe a word you say?"

Scientists: "Look, just give us zillions of taxpayers dollars so we can build shiny tallywacker-shaped rockets! By the way, I'm sexually attracted to captain Kirk!"

America: "Why should we waste our money on you scientists, when scientists have never done anything to make us wealthier?"

Scientists: "Okay, I give up talking to decent, law-abiding Americans. I'll talk to ghetto dudes and materialistic women instead! Look, shiney object, bling-bling, shiney shiney!"

Blacks and women: "Wow, let's make hard working men pay taxes so that you scientists can bring me some space bling-bling!"

More:

http://www.landoverbaptist.net/showthread.php?t=3782&page=5

[^__^]

Holy S**t.

[Clips video et paroles]

Damn that's one diamond my wife would like.

[Justin]

Wow...you guys certainly are strange, though I found the solar system bling comment a good chuckle. The comment about 'the blacks' did bother me a bit just because of the connotation implied by using that label that way.

Though it is rather humorous to think how many of us 'whites' idolize that lifestyle and even go so far as to try and turn our houses and neighborhoods into ghettos.

Anyway...a rock of compressed carbon of that size is bound to be a good bit different than a diamond throughout the most part just because of the gravitational crunch applied by its own mass.

The generic use of the term diamond is mostly just to gain public attention since lord knows most people today only care about what rapper soandso is driving or wearing.

[Yitz]

You would have to look at the graphite/diamond phase table to see which has the lower entropy under which pressures. There is a lot of pressure at the center, due to gravity. All diamond tends, entropically, towards graphite. But that process takes a very long time, on the order of billions of years, if the temperature is low enough. So it would depend on the temperature history as well.

[hasina]

It's not bigger than the earth,the earth's diameter at the equater is 7,926,28 miles(12756.1km) far bigger than the 2,500 miles quoted
The moon's diameter is 2140 miles(3476km) so you could say it's bigger than the moon

[Hadezul]

Twinkle twinkle little star,
How I wonder what you are,
Like a diamond in the sky..
Something something you get the point.

[justin]

AS FOR FACT OR FICTION: it is a fact that stars the size of our sun or smaller will indeed turn into a white dwarf (which is basically a big carbon ball) after hydrogen and helium burning phases cease, it will collapse in on itself with the leftover carbon... blah blah blah... i guess the important part is that your girlfriend couldn't wear a stone from a white dwarf even if there was a way to retrieve it: one tablespoon of a white dwarf material weighs one ton!! http://observe.arc.nasa.gov/nasa/ootw/1996/ootw_961126/ob961126.html

[Martin Cleary]

Imagine how inexpensive diamonds would be if we could find some way of obtaining this dwarf thing for the benefit of girl-earthlings. They could have as many diamonds as they needed, for ever and ever. Boy-eathlings could give their girlfriend-earthlings a diamond ring 20 or 39 times a day.How happy everyone would be!

[Lindsay]

Science Fiction eventually becomes fact?
The Story in a compilation of short stories " The Mother of Invention" authors name regrettably forgotten had a craft landing on a planet covered in diamond dust with Parent Star about to go Nova(super) diamond dust ruined mechanicals Travelers trapped unable to take off. They solved problem by moving Planet in developing Anti Gravity drive.

[Lindsay]

Science Fiction eventually becomes fact?
The Story in a compilation of short stories " The Mother of Invention" authors name regrettably forgotten had a craft landing on a planet covered in diamond dust with Parent Star about to go Nova(super) diamond dust ruined mechanicals Travelers trapped unable to take off. They solved problem by moving Planet in developing Anti Gravity drive.

[Kate]

Me want!

[Paul]

Didn't Arthur C. Clarke write a novel about this subject?
(before the actual discovery!)

[Kotiq]

From what I know , diamonds can be easily made from pure carbon , forging 1 carat costs about 50 $ (the only problem , is that made diamonds glow when exposed to UV light :P)

[Herman]

That's the first thing I thought Kate - in the Space Odyssey series, the core of Jupiter is a giant diamond & when the planet impodes & becomes a second star (which just casually happens every other day) the core goes kaboom & part of it lands on the 'new' Europa as a giant diamond-y mountain. He mentions the irony of the title of the aforementioned Beatles track also. Good times.

[Roger Ritthaler]

I thought that carbon took the "diamond" form from intense pressure and heat. From where did the intense pressure come?

[JosephSHaas at hotmaildotcom]

Yup; It look like it; reference: Arthur C. Clarke's Venus Prime, book 5, (c)1990 by Paul-Preuss about Professor Forster and Jupiter's Moon. And WHO is that blonde space babe in the yellow suit?

[Kevin]

Sounds like something my girlfriend might want.

[Wormbrain]

So stars die and turn into huge diamonds? Is this a video game or something???

"I thought that carbon took the "diamond" form from intense pressure and heat. From where did the intense pressure come?"

Gravity.

[RB]

Ok if is a diamond it is very interesting ( though I personally don't really care for diamonds, its emeralds that I like)but it doesn't matter what does matter is that one person had to take this story and make it into something other than just simple enjoyment. There is so little news to read or hear these days that is enjoyable could we not just simply have enjoyed this, fantasized, or dreamed about the idea of something this grand?

[Jim]

A DIMOND IS FOREVER.

[Atit Shah]

i just bought it, my 3 billion gf's are coming over

[MR space]

I guess god wanted to show us his bling bling

[Sunil Singh]

I will buy this diamond for girlfriend necklace...

[WTF]

Here I am expecting intelligent dialogue, albeit on the topic of diamonds in space when all of a sudden the conversation (if you can call it that) turns it one of “blacks”, “ghetto”, and I’ll stop right there. Would it be fair to say this is an example of a deep intrinsic racist attitude by this most likely white person? I didn’t notice any “monkeys’ in the comments section instigating anyone to leave such comments behind (even though that is no excuse either). Sad, you can be smart enough to detail what a star is made out of, but you remain too stupid to realize that color doesn’t define the man. You define us in your own minds by focusing on the weakest of the weak. You’re too stupid to realize you’re a slave to the ignorant ways of your fellow white men (and the media, govt, etc) and just as ignorant and just as much a follower as any monkey who wants a diamond just to fit in. Apparently, intelligence has nothing to do with any of this. Thanks for enlightening me.

[Lit]

Is this your first time on the internet? Of course there will be flamers in the comments.

[Kyle]

don't you need a substantial amount of a carbon base to create a diamond?

if there's that much carbon on an atmosphere, you might as well call it Earth 2.

not buying this story, sorry

[syberghost]

My wife couldn't wear a diamond from a white dwarf just because it weighs a ton? You haven't seen my wife.

[The Bard]

Huh, sort of poetic that as a sun dies it's core becomes a diamond.

I'm rather surprised that it's carbon that is being formed in the star, I'd always been under the impression it was Hydrogen being converted to Helium. I'm a chemistry nut not a space freak though so I wouldn't be surprised if I'm wrong.

[puttputt]

Superman did it by squeezing coal between his butt cheeks.

[Dale]

It's bigger than the Earth in "Mass". That is where the comment comes from. It is About 1/200 the Sun's radius (0.6 times the Earth's radius), but nearly the same mass as the Sun.

[cyanide]

Hydrogen turns into helium under heat, then under an extreme process at the end of a star's life (unless it's a supergiant) the helium turns into carbon under gravitational stress. The pressure due to gravity exerted on the carbon as well as heat leftover from the nuclear fire force the carbon into a diamond structure rather than graphite. the material weighs a ton because of the gravity, if you take it out of the extreme conditions of a white dwarf and onto earth's surface, it will weigh as much as a diamond the same size.

[Allie]

I think we should get on the big diamond and blow it up and make small diamonds. Or I get dibs on the big rock as my land. MWAHAHAHA