From: rhinoceros (rhinoceros@freemail.gr)
Date: Thu Mar 18 2004 - 06:41:03 MST
Did you see this?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/3492919.stm
Twinkling in the sky is a diamond star of 10 billion trillion trillion carats, astronomers have discovered.
The cosmic diamond is a chunk of crystallised carbon, 4,000 km across, some 50 light-years from the Earth in the constellation Centaurus.
It's the compressed heart of an old star that was once bright like our Sun but has since faded and shrunk.
Astronomers have decided to call the star "Lucy" after the Beatles song, Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds.
<snip>
The diamond star completely outclasses the largest diamond on Earth, the 530-carat Star of Africa which resides in the British Crown Jewels.
<snip>
"We figured out that the carbon interior of this white dwarf has solidified to form the galaxy's largest diamond," says Metcalfe.
Astronomers expect our Sun will become a white dwarf when it dies 5 billion years from now. Some two billion years after that, the Sun's ember core will crystallise as well, leaving a giant diamond in the centre of the solar system.
"Our Sun will become a diamond that truly is forever," says Metcalfe.
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