Cosmic Diamond

American astronomers at the Smithsonian Centre of Astrophysics have found the biggest diamond in the sky. Directly above Australia a white dwarf star next to the Southern Cross has been found to have a core of crystallized carbon or diamond.

The diamond has 10 billion trillion trillion carats, that is a 1 followed by 34 zeroes.

The cosmic diamond is about 50 light years away and is too faint to see with the naked eye. Its scientific name is BPM 37093, but some people refer to it as Lucy as in the Beatles song “Lucy in the sky with diamonds”.

The core of the cosmic diamond makes up between 50 to 90% of its mass and is hidden beneath hydrogen and helium gas layers.

A white dwarf is what stars turn into when they die. Intense pressures at the center of the white dwarf compress the carbon into diamond.

Our sun will become also a white dwarf when it dies in about 5 billion years and its carbon will crystallize as well. Our sun will become a diamond that truly lasts forever!