DailyDirt: That Lucy In The Sky... Is A Diamond

Too Much Free Time

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

Mon, Jun 8th 2015 5:00pm — Michael Ho

Diamonds are usually considered expensive rare gems, but they're also just an allotrope of carbon that could be a useful semiconductor material someday. Giant diamonds floating in space could be relatively common, but there's no practical way to go space mining for them. Diamonds aren't easy to make, but some folks are getting better at it.

There's a star designated BPM 37093 but also known as Lucy. It's a crystallized white dwarf with a diamond at its center about 4,000 km across. In 7 billion years or so, this will also be the fate of our own Sun. [url]
A super-Earth-sized planet circling 55 Cancri about 40 light years away has been called the "diamond planet" as it was the first known planet thought to be made up largely of diamond. Further study shows that it might not contain as much diamond as once thought, but it's not the only planet that has a lot of diamonds. [url]
Diamonds might not be as rare in the near future if researchers can make them in a lab... out of peanut butter. Okay, peanut butter isn't the best starting material to make synthetic diamonds, but almost any source of carbon will do. [url]

After you've finished checking out those links, take a look at our Daily Deals for cool gadgets and other awesome stuff.

Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.

Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.

While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.

–The Techdirt Team

Filed Under: 55 cancri, allotrope, bpm 37093, diamond planet, diamonds, planets, space, space exploration, synthetic diamonds, white dwarf

7 Comments

If you liked this post, you may also be interested in...

Reader Comments

Subscribe: RSS

View by: Time | Thread

Sunhawk, 8 Jun 2015 @ 5:16pm

"Okay, peanut butter isn't the best starting material to make synthetic diamonds"

Screw that! I want a peanut butter diamond, damnit! :-p
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Pixelation, 8 Jun 2015 @ 6:13pm

"It's a crystallized white dwarf with a diamond at its center about 4,000 km across."

Yeah, sure. I've got winged monkeys flying out of my ass too...
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Lawrence D’Oliveiro, 8 Jun 2015 @ 11:50pm

Re: I've got winged monkeys flying out of my ass too...
And guess what: both monkeys and your ass are chock-full of carbon, just like peanut butter. So squeeze both of you enough, and you, too, can be turned into a beautiful diamond, regardless of how ugly you may be now!
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Village Idiot (profile), 9 Jun 2015 @ 6:10am

Since when is diamond rare?
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Mason Wheeler (profile), 9 Jun 2015 @ 7:39am

Re:
Since forever. It's just not as rare as the market-manipulators in the jewelry cartels want us to believe (and pay for).
[ link to this | view in thread ]
John Fenderson (profile), 9 Jun 2015 @ 8:16am

Re: Re: I've got winged monkeys flying out of my ass too...
It's true! My ex-wife turned my heart into a diamond.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
John Fenderson (profile), 9 Jun 2015 @ 9:42am

Re: Re:
It depends on what you mean by rare. In terms of how common they are, diamonds are semi-precious. They're roughly as common as agate.
[ link to this | view in thread ]