Discovery of largest known diamond

In the selection of Valentine's Day gift for a wife or girlfriend, you can not go wrong with diamonds. If you really want to impress your favorite lady for Valentine's Day is, get the biggest diamond in the galaxy. But you better be a deep wallet, because this 10 billion trillion trillion carat monster has a cost that is literally astronomical! "We need a jeweler's lens the size of the Sun since this diamond!" says astronomer Travis Metcalfe ( Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics ) who heads a team of researchers who discovered the giant gem. "Bill Gates and Donald Trump together could not begin to afford it. "
When asked to assess the value of the cosmic jewel, Ronald Winston, CEO of Harry Winston Inc, said that such a large diamond probably would reduce the market value, stating: "Who knows may be a self-deflating prophecy because there is so much of it. " And he added: "It's definitely too big to wear!"
The newly discovered cosmic diamond is a piece of crystallized carbon 50-light years from Earth in the constellation Centaurus. (A light year is the distance light travels in one year, or about 6 trillion miles.) It is 2500 miles in length and weighs 5 million trillion trillion pounds, which translates to approximately 10 billion trillion trillion carats, or one followed by 34 zeros.
"It's the mother of all diamonds!" says Metcalfe. "Some people refer to it as" Lucy, "a tribute song for the Beatles« Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds. "
The diamond star completely outweighs the largest diamond on Earth, the 530-carat Star of Africa which resides in the Crown Jewels of England. The Star of Africa was cut from the largest diamond ever found on Earth, a 3100 carat diamond.
The huge cosmic gem (technically known as BPM 37093), is actually a crystallized white dwarf. A white dwarf is the hot core of the star, left over after the star exhausts the nuclear fuel and dies. It is made mostly of carbon and is coated with a thin layer of hydrogen and helium gases.
For more than four decades, astronomers have speculated that the interiors of white dwarfs crystallized, but obtaining direct evidence became possible only recently.
"The hunt for the crystal core of this white dwarf has been like the search for the lost Dutchman mine. It was there for decades but only now been identified, " says author Michael Montgomery (University of Cambridge).
The white dwarf studied by Metcalfe, Montgomery, and Antonio Kanaan (UFSC Brazil), is not only radiant but also harmonious. It rings like a gigantic gong, undergoing constant pulses.
"By measuring vibrations, we had the opportunity to study the hidden interior of the white dwarf, just like seismograph measurements of earthquakes allow geologists to study the Earth's interior. We calculated that the carbon interior of this white dwarf has solidified to form the largest diamond in the galaxy, "says the Metcalfe.
Our Sun will become a white dwarf when it dies 5 billion years from now. About two billion years after that, it is ember core will crystallize the Sun also leaving a huge diamond in the center of our solar system.
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