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The Galaxy's Largest Diamond
unassimilatible writes "The Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics reports 'to impress your favorite lady this Valentine's Day, get her the galaxy's largest diamond.' A newly discovered cosmic diamond is a chunk of crystallized carbon 50 light-years from the Earth in the constellation Centaurus. It is 2,500 miles across and weighs 5 million trillion trillion pounds, which translates to approximately 10 billion trillion trillion carats, or a one followed by 34 zeros. A cheesy, unrealistic simulation is also available. AP has a story as well."
DeBeers has announced their official entry into the X-prize competition...
There are only 10 kinds of people in this world... those who understand binary and those who don't
Bite my shiny metal... oops... Nevermind!
Sadly DeBeers has already posted one poor volunteer from South Africa to sit on it until it gets close enough to rope in.
mitch
Is the high resolution image for the women?
Great, now I have to haul my ass all the way to where?
This getting married thing is getting more and more complicated each year.
--Thei Antispamist A useless endevor that will cer
> A newly discovered cosmic diamond is a chunk of crystallized carbon 50 light-years from the Earth in the constellation Centaurus. It is 2,500 miles across...
Then again, maybe Sir Arthur's conjecture is right and there's a much larger diamond in our own "backyard". Now if only the Firstborn would do their thing and fire up Lucifer, diamond would be as cheap as sand...
http://www.astronomycafe.net/qadir/q2270.html
When the hell are news outlets going to hire writers that at least understand science somewhat and won't dumb it down so far that it becomes just another fluff story next to the one about the cute puppies? Granted, it's cool that scientists can confirm a hunk of crystallized carbon that large, but give me a friggin break....
My understanding is that the vast majority of a diamond's "sparkle" is the result of careful cutting and controlling where the light enters the diamond. Slicing through an otherwise uncut diamond would not be too impressive, I'd imagine. Especially considering the lack of a strong light source.
Maybe a more worthwhile story would be on the fact that the entire diamond industry is created by incredibly strict control of the supply, which is kept artificially low to dramatically inflate price. If people knew, and accepted, the truth this wouldn't be considered that much more special than the fact that some other planets are just big, big versions of rocks. Gasp!
Us guys will be in seriously deep shit with our signifigant others if someone gives that to his signifigant other.
Job? I don't have time to get a job! Who will sit around and bitch about being broke and unemployed then?
Perhaps the universe is merely a diamond-making machine, and everything else, including earth, life, and grits are merely unwanted industrial byproducts.
Or perhaps not.
Is this a stellar mass squeezed down to planetary size, or what?
with something like "I heard Shelly's daughter has one with 10 billion trillion trillion TRILLION carats."
"You dont love me...."
*sigh*
Did this diamond form based on the same principles as diamonds here on Earth? I thought coal had to be very highly compressed for ages before it became a diamond. Not so?
I for one welcome our new diamond overlords.
I wonder if these kinds of discoveries could get otherwise uninterested parties into the space biz. Plenty of scenerios have us mining the moon for oxygen, fuel, etc, in order to survive up there, but what about other minerals/precious stones? If a huge chunk of [gold|platinium|unobtainium] were found on the moon, would it be cost effective to mine it and send it back to earth?
I'm sure there will be other such finds. This huge diamond probably doesn't even scratch the surface. (ha!)
on closer inspection it is revealed to be cubic zirconium which drastically reduces it value at the local pawn shop.
Know what I like about atheists? I've yet to meet one that believes God is on their side.
NASA's moon/mars missions have been scrapped. Details vauge. In an unrelated story, DeBeers' announced they will be starting a space program with primary research into developing inter-space missiles.
Error: Id10t detected
Phrases like '5 million trillion trillion" are silly. They should put the number's real name, write it out in digits, and-or use scientific notation (or a variant like C-style "e notation"). It ticks me off -- the magnitude is already so large that it's incredibly hard to visualize, so they should put it in the clearest format possible. Do people say "there are sixty hundred hundred hundred hundred people alive on earth"? No, of course not, they say "six billion" or "6,000,000,000". If the people printing this assume that no one knows the words for numbers above a trillion, they could at least use the semi-easily-parsed "followed by n zeros" format consistently.
It wouldn't matter if someone went up and brought the diamond back. As soon as you send it to the jewelers to be mapped and evaluated, they'll just swap it out for another, lesser quality, diamond without you even knowing.
I say leave it in place. We could shave off the first 30 miles of top layer and shine a giant laser at it for the largest intergalactic network ever known to man. Since it would take light 50 years to travel to the planet, Half-Life 2 should be just about ready to play by then.It's a white dwarf, the diamond would be sorrounded by plasma and gas.
I hear that Tau Ceti is bragging that they bought a larger one.
The simple truth is that interstellar distances will not fit into the human imagination
- Douglas Adams
So, don't overpay for it, no matter what the salesman says about size mattering...
TSG
- The universe's largest collection of AOL CDs, approximately a terragoogle of them circling Saturn in the form of one of its rings. Results of failed marketing campaign circa 2501ad.
- A twenty-billion tonne meteor shaped exactly like the Hand of God, heading straight for Ur^h^h the planet Earth.
- Life on Mars, complete with funky trance tunes and dayglo noserings.
- A bong the size of NYC, containing twenty billion tonnes of a material that under examination appears to be chemically identical to Tunisian purple haze. Said bong is orbiting the Sun quite close to Mars and already the petition to send a manned mission to Mars has collected five hundred and thirty million signatures. Most of them say, "send me, send me!" Others just say, "Dude, that's too much!"
- A radio beacon embedded in the heart of a small black rock circling one of Pluto's moon. After the rock is detected and retrieved in 2032 at incredible expense, and cracked open following ten years of drilling, it is found to contain a copy of MAD Magazine from circa 1972 and a small piece of paper with the words "regular delivery to this address, please" on it.
- The discovery, in a deep crater on Mars, of an underground passage leading to a huge room filled with silent, brooding machines. After long study and careful analysis of the patterns and markings, we activate one of the machines. Immediately the whole room comes to life and a small black hole appears in its center. The Martian surface starts to slide into the black hole, then the entire planet, and finally the whole Solar System. A team of two plutonaughts watch the scene from the far boundaries of the Plutonian orbit, and as the last specks are absorbed into the now huge and pulsating black hole, they read, in huge flashing letters, the text "ZIPPING COMPLETE. NOW REFORMATTING MEDIA... 1% COMPLETE, PLEASE WAIT."
Ceci n'est pas une signature
They'll probably stuff the diamond star into a warehouse complex somewhere in Texas, force slaves to chisel off small amounts of it to create the perception of "rareness", and artificially drive up the price to screw ignorant consumers.
This puts another spin on the phrase "reaching the stars for HER" right?
"Wireless : LAN
If a huge chunk of [gold|platinium|unobtainium] were found on the moon, would it be cost effective to mine it and send it back to earth?
The main problem is that the Earth's economy would be screwed up if something of immense value was brought back.
The value of gold (and our reliance on it to balance certain markets) or oil is based on there being a fixed amount of it, a regulated supply of it, or both. If you brought back several trillion dollars worth of gold in one giant lump from the Moon, the price of gold on Earth would crash, and currencies based on the gold standard would be made worthless overnight.
This is because gold is, effectively, useless, and only holds stature for traditional and rarity reasons (i.e. 'lots of gold makes me look good because there's so little of it available'). If they brought back significant amounts of oil, however, things would be quite different, as oil has a non-cosmetic use.
This is just how I understand it. An economist can correct me or fill in the blanks.
The funding behind the manned Mars mission has just been leaked...
DeBeers is funding the mission entirely, after Congressional approval of a DeBeers clause in its contract with the US that specifically states that DeBeers shall retain full ownership of any space debris picked up during the round trip.
And in other news, 75 members of Congress announced their retirements within minutes of each other.
I remember reading that in 2010: Odyssey Two. In the book, there's a diamond the size of earth at it's core.
hate titty pee colon slash slash
Why must people write numbers like that? It's unfathomable anyway so just write the proper name (10 decillion in the US system) instead of obnoxious "billion trillion billion mllion" nonsense. Writing 10 billion trillion trillion doesn't help people understand it better, it just annoys those who know how to correctly name extremely large numbers.
Diamonds -- Are they really worth the cost?.
Rank Presidents by th
It's been a long time since I've read it, but I believe in Odyssey Three after Jupiter becomes a second sun, it's methane core is compressed to crystallized carbon (a giant diamond) and is expelled and lands on Europa and sinks into the icey sea. I remember a scene where an astronauton Europa picks up a shard of diamond and it slices through his space suit, killing him.
Does anyone remember more about this book?
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They Are Vermin Feeding On Each Other's Feces.
I Hate \.
2061: Odyssey Three is the title. Sorry Arthur.
Slashdot Eds Link Anonymous Posts With Logged Posts
They Are Vermin Feeding On Each Other's Feces.
I Hate \.
I hope an evil bitch-queen from space doesn't enslave a bunch of cute, fuzzy sprites to cover it with netting and tow it away. I was really looking forward to spring.
Sono koro, bokura wa, sore ga sekai no shinjitsu da to shinjite ita.
Remember folks, gravity is G*(m1*m2)/r^2, where G is the grav constant, m1/2 are your masses, and r is the radius (distance between objects).
White dwarf stars have less than 1.4 (I believe that was the number...on that order, anyhow) solar masses.
Compress our sun to the size of the Earth. You're decreasing the value of 'r' while maintaining the masses. Getting close to the surface would be suicide, even if it was 'cold'.
Yes but can fedex or UPS deliver it for Valentines day, any geek could get laid with one of these.
... Kobe Bryant's already bought it, to buy off his wife.
Gravitatotional Force
Fg = G * m1 * m2 * r^-2
Gravitational Acceleration Fg/m2
Ag = G *m1 * r^-2
G = 6.67E-11
m1= 5 million trillion trillion lbs = 5 * 10^6 * 10^12 * 10^12 lbs= 5E30 lbs *(1kg/2.2lbs) = 2.26E30 kg
r = diameter of 2500mi/2 = 1250mi * (1609 m/mi) = 2011680 meters
Ag= 6.67E-11 * 2.26E30kg * (2011680m)^-2 = 37,249,159.4 m/s^2
Ag = (37,249,159.4 m/s^2)/(9.8 m/s^2)= 3,800,934.63 g's
3.8 million times earth gravity?
Unless there was some mistake in the way they described the mass (million billion trillion) that seems pretty rough right?
again correct me if i was wrong.
Flappinbooger isn't my real name
It's a conflict diamond - from a war a long, long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away.
In Soviet America the banks rob you!
Now, I guess that, encouraged by their discovery, there will be a renewed effort to find Lucy.
...and, on the seventh day, God switched off his Mac.
---
According to Google Calculator, this diamond has ~ 330,000 times the mass of the planet earth.
anyone here up on their physics? i think i'm doing this right...
acceleration = Gm/r^2
G = Gravitational constant = 6.67*10^-11
m = mass (Kg) = 2.26796185*10^30 Kg (or - 5*10^30 Lb)
r = radius to the center of the object (m) = 2011680 m (or - 2500miles / 2)
acceleration = (6.67*10^-11)(2.26796185*10^30 Kg) / (2011680 m ^2)
acceleration due to gravity = 37,380,386.1 m/s^2 !?!?!?!?
You are confusing me with someone who cares.
Is it just me or does it look suspiciously like a scene from the TV series of The Hitch Hikers Guide To The Galaxy?
I bet this is going to piss off DeBeers to no end, but...
I for one, welcome our new diamond overlords.
Learn something new.
. . .I tried telling my wife pretty much same thing on our wedding night. She still wasn't consoled.
which KIND of makes sense but is really very obscure that i find it hard to believe that it would go plus 4 funny so fast
..Women worldwide ambigous...
acceleration of earth towards the largest diamond in the galaxy!
acceleration = G(M)(m)/r^2
G = gravitational constant = 6.67*10^-11
M = mass of the diamond = 2.26796185*10^30 Kg
m = mass of earth = 5.9742*10^24 Kg
r = distance between the center of earth and the center of the diamond = 4.7302642*10^17 meters
acceleration = ((6.67*10^-11)(2.26796185*10^30) (5.9742*10^24)) / ((4.7302642*10^17)^2)
acceleration = 4.03896919*10^9 m/s^2
(4.03896919*10^9)/(9.8) = the g's that earth experiances as a result
Earth experiences 412,139,713 g's
is this a good or bad thing???
You are confusing me with someone who cares.
For my girlfriend to get her diamond gift from me, she had to do the same.
Blow...very hard rock...
Buy Steampunk Clothing Online!
Twinkle twinkle little star
How I wonder what you are
Up above the world so high
Like a diamond in the sky
Twinkle twinkle little star
How I wonder what you are
There are 10 kinds of people in the world - those that know binary, and those that don't.
If this thing makes it overhere, it will void all our values and ruin earths' economy. My suggestion is to cryo Bush & Partners for a mission to prevent this thing falling into evil hands. Liberace would have liked it!
... and now to make [the 14th] it complete, where is the /. article about the largest chocolate in the galaxy ?!
-- Ben --
Yes and I'm already at milepost 7 hglghlghlghghlg
Sorry to post this on Valentine's Day but it must be said. Diamonds are not really a precious stone. Most of the world's diamond supplies are locked away by DeBeers and released into the market slowly to inflate perceived value. Diamonds have no real resale value, they only have sentimental value. Ever try to sell your diamond encrusted jewelry? You'll never get as much as you paid for them unless your piece is literally one in a million.
Diamonds unfortunately are the product of blood feuds, multinational marketing values, and an evil corporate identity.
.deviatefromtheabsolute.
Sounds like this would have an irresistable attraction on Scrooge McDuck.
all these replies, and still no mention of lucy - in the sky with diamonds.
The poster is a well-known troll: look at his history. Please mod the jerk into oblivion.
Imagine a Beowulf cluster of those. 5 million trillion pound diamond. Check. All we need to do now is change polygamy laws and we'll be set.
i'm a little tired of astronomers trotting out stupid gimmicks to "market" each one of their discoveries and try to make it sexy. I know that you need a catch line to get people interested and all, but stuff like this is just stupid.
when I read about a huge diamond in space, I expect a little more than a white dwarf discovery. Come on, this is ridiculous.
We know (we think we know) that there is a lot of dark matter between star ssystems and between galaxies. No need to go that far - there is a belt of cold rocks outside of Pluto. Who knows, maybe some of those rocks are broken pieces of one of such diamond star.
Now, it's a matter of time that they will discover of proof of such diamond rocks there and begin hunting for them. Can it stimulate investors to space industry?
Less is more !
50 light years is the distance that light (the stuff we use to see, you know?) travels in 50 years. The early reptiles were born too early to see it. Your parents were not. Ask them about it.
http://xxx.lanl.gov/abs/astro-ph/0402046
Second, nowhere in the paper is there any mention of "diamond". Crystallized carbon can also be in graphite form, so it might actually be a very large pencil lead...
Couldn't this story have waited one more day until after Valentine's? To raise expectations last minute like that is just...well...brutal.
sev
but have you considered the following argument: shut up.
it's about the same as a mountain side
that's the cat's eye nebula in the background of that cheesy unrealistic simulation! I have a poster of that one. used to sit on my desktop, too!
v e/ releases/1995/01/image/a
http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/newsdesk/archi
That's why it's so complicated. You think having more than 1 girlfriend is difficult to swing? - better not try the "another wife every year" thing.
-tid242
With a few exceptions, secrecy is deeply incompatible with democracy and with science. --Carl Sagan
article say:
"..10 billion trillion trillion carats.."
my dictionary say:
"carat: a unit of weight for precious stones [..]"
and:
"zero gravity: the state or condition of lacking apparent gravitational pull / WEIGHTLESSNESS"
"weightless: having little weight [..]"
so isn't it 0 carats? or am i wrong?
("worthlessness: lacking worth")
It was discovered in 1991 by the brazilian astronomer Kepler de Oliveira Filho
b ibcode=1998BaltA...7..183K&db_key=AST&high=3af2b23 b0113874
http://www.iowastatedaily.com/vnews/display.v/ART/ 1998/05/26/3bf43e3e0d51a?in_archive=1
m l
Older references:
http://cdsads.u-strasbg.fr/cgi-bin/nph-bib_query?
http://www.joiabr.com.br/curiosidades/jconline.ht
I guess you give your lover a piece of Uranus?
5 million trillion trillion pounds! How much is that in kg? :)
My husband only got me a 120 gig external hard drive for Valentine's Day! What a gyp!
I dream of a better world... one in which chickens can cross roads without their motives being questioned.
Diamond sheets would make terrible replacements for window panes. Diamonds have a very high index of internal refraction, that means that it will not let light through easily. As a matter of fact, take an overhead light projector, the type that some professors use. Then place a diamond on top of the light surface, you will see that the diamond creates a shadown and no light gets through. The diamond is practically opaque.
I saw this demonstration with my own eyes in a Chem 101 class. Diamonds are reflective, yes, but they are more opaque than transparent.
I downloaded the larger images and inspected them at the highest zoom level with inconclusive results. Were you using the Gimp pluggin that detects CZ?
From excellent karma to terible karma with a single +5 funny post...
It's unreasonable projects like this that put Magrathea out of business...
my girlfriend has fingers fat enough to fit this on :(
The New Diamond Age
668.5
i hope this hasnt got anything to do with Lucious DeBeers? - Now that would be a conspiracy... It's all coming back to me now
[DeBeers has a stranglehold on the world's diamond mines, and as you'd expect, they have plenty of money - so it's privately held.]
I hate call waitin`~+~~~
NO CARRIER
I think that "Metallic Hydrogen" would sound really cool!
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
"A cheesy, unrealistic simulation is also available."
As plenipotentiary for the planet Zirconia, I must object in the strongest terms possible to your casting aspersions on my fair planet.
Hey, has anybody thought about selling the thing on ebay? Auction starting at $1, self-collectors only ;-)
World currency markets are not based on gold standards anymore. There's just not enough gold to go around to capture the economic value being traded in today's electronic money.
If the world were flooded with gold, industrialized nations would use it as a resource in producing consumer goods. We would have gold everything, but, the world markets would remain intact.
This is my sig.
http://www.iht.com/ihtsearch.php?id=122598&owner=( International%20Herald%20Tribune)&date=20031225142 337
And yes this guy is still alive 8)
But be assured he won't have that much problems on this Valentines day...
The guy is in Southern Sudan and is muslim...
Any envious geek can ask to telecommute, but broadband mught be hard to get 8)
It takes 40+ muscles to frown, but only four to extend your arm and bitchslap the motherfucker
naturally there's going to be a lot of gravity
the diamond has over 300000 times the mass of earth, in a body less that's easily 27 times less in volume.
Don't they know that 10 billion trillion trillion is 10 octillion?
It's always amazed me how the notion of a diamond is internationally and cross-culturally so tightly bound with the same outmoded and generally chauvinist belief that true love can be secured through the purchase of one of these things. Of course, there are very many well-paid advertising agencies ensuring that we continue to believe this but...
Are they claiming they're seeing light transmitted through the thing, from yet-more-distant stars? Sorry, I just don't buy it.
Need a Linux consultant in New Orleans?
the majority of Jupiter's mass is protium, Hydrogen with a molar mass of one, its too small to have been a star of any size at any point.
though there is evidence to suport that if Jupiter were to have a higher deuterium (heavy hydrogen) content, it would turn into a star, however this is not happening, so don't worry about having no night anytime soon.
In the future, we will all be very smart or very stupid.
Gemesys.com belongs to a domain squatter.
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Found a referral to whois.fabulous.com.
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Oh, no! You have walked into the slavering fangs of a lurking grue!
I call dibs on it, and I haven't seen anyone else call it!
Not muslim... He's Animist ...
It takes 40+ muscles to frown, but only four to extend your arm and bitchslap the motherfucker
Last I checked, carbon was atomic number 6, and nickel was atomic number 28. What's the problem here?
ZhainYee formula ...
According to the Ralosifovik theory, white dwarves cannot have isometric carbon you dimwit.
Oh, here's the problem. Ralosifovik isn't a real name, there is no Zhain Yee formula.
So this is just detailed troll urine, rather than simply above my head. Fine.
You can bet that he's doing it for some doll. "
-Guys and Dolls
Well... I don't know about Carats neither Pounds...
Next time, please, specify using in Kilograms.
Thanks for bringing some sanity to this discussion. The author of the original story was just trying to get attention, and probably knows nothing about the physics of stars.
Already, De Beers is working on exclusive rights to the diamond, in order to maintain prices at current level.
Anyone who knows diamonds would know they look like a friggin light colored rock. The facets shown in the diagram are a result of careful cutting and polishing. Something that doesn't happen in a galaxy far far away.
This is why we need space mining, not a manned mission to mars. There has been significant progress made in the use of diamond as a semiconductor. If we would break off large bit of this we would be set for ever. Granted...its really really really far so we wouldn't be set, but our great x10^7 grand kids would be. Realistically, Im sure there are several spots right here in the closets asteroid belt that would yield similar but much smaller materials. Though why do something that would further the advancement of man when you could have a one time only manned mission to mars?
http://www.gemesis.com/home.htm
They're selling yellow diamonds. I thought the Russians had a process years ago for adding some metal to the stew that hoovered up the nitrogen that caused the yellow color, producing clear diamonds.
I'm with the Slashdotter who said that even at the same price, he'd prefer to own or give a jewel embodying human science, engineering, ingenuity and cooperation rather than one dug out of the ground in an armed camp. My wife feels the same way. If I had to have a natural diamond I'd wait for a Martian one.
By the time they polish it, it will probably only be 8 billion trillion trillion carats.
Now, if we can only find a proud, bead-loving people to exploit with this.
If you introduce so much gold into the world that its as abundant as lead, then there would need to be a new rare mineral to back currency. If this was to happen, every currency would be worthless, and so would gold. It would be just like the massive inflation Germany suffered in the 1920's... imagine pushing cartloads of gold to buy one loaf of bread.
Yeah, okay, call me silly, but...
:p
This reminds me of "Rainbow Brite and the Star Stealer", a 1985 film involving Rainbow Brite trying to restore color to the world.
Specifically, some dominatrix lolita princess decides to capture a planet made entirely out of diamond. That diamond planet just happens to shine light all throughout the universe, acting like a prism and restoring color to everything (where "everything" seems to be only "earth")
After a long stint on VHS, it looks like it's coming to DVD in 2004. Whee.
Here's some info about it from IMDB.
Nobody would bother going to space for diamonds, because there are already too many of them down here. We're just supposed to believe that there aren't many so that we can pay a higher price for them.
yea, if gold were that prevalent--to use in wiring, and in bullets, i dont think a coin valued at 20$ would be small enough for even california's governor to carry it.
Troll, Troll, go away and flame again some other day
They'd be De Beernuts, no?
Opportunity knocks. Karma hunts you down.
This reminds me of Hugo Award winning Sci-fi author Vernor Vinge's A Deepness in the Sky. In it, a group of space travellers enter a solar system with bewildering astronomical phenomena, one of which was the lack of any asteroids except for mile wide diamonds.
I'm surprised noone has commented on how it's rougly 400 miles further across than our own moon. 2,500 (diamond lunoid) > 2,100 (Earth's moon) Was there a Greek god of diamonds or gemstones we could name it after? :)
If it's 2,500 miles across, that puts it bigger than our moon at 2,160 miles across right? Maybe it is as round as the picture shows.
Gemesis URL (corrected)
calculations show the diamond to be 2.27x10^30 kg the sun is about 1.99x10^30 kg for comparison
"Our Sun will become a diamond that truly is forever," says Metcalfe.
That is, unless the proton is unstable.
-Rob
Kobe Bryant's wife just got really pissed at him again.
DeBeers probably launching rockets as we speak to mine that diamond.
Best Community for Gaming and Gadgets!
Here in the States, we've gotta learn conversion factors for just about every measurement that we use. 1 mile is 1.609344km, a nautical mile is 1.15 miles or 1.85km, 1 inch is 2.54 centimeters, a kilogram is roughly 2.2 pounds, degrees farenheit is 9*C/5+32... I can go on and on. Non-Americans bitch and bitch and bitch about how insensitive we are to be predominantly monolingual, and expect the world to change to suit our every whim and desire. And now you're guilty of the same.
All that being said, I love metric. "Standard" measurements suck. And as somebody else mentioned, a pound is a measurement of weight, not mass -- so the 'pounds' bit is wholly inaccurate. But don't expect the world to use kg just because of your ignorance.
Maybe this is the one that they took out of ;^)
Cameron's ass in the movie Ferris Buehler's Day
Off...
"Pardon my french, but Cameron is so tight that if
you stuck a lump of coal up his ass, in two weeks
you'd have a diamond." -- Ferris Buehler's Day Off
Liz Taylor just bought it.
Or was that Liz Hurley?
Can't keep my Lizzies straight anymore.
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
Now only if I can figure out how to get there... :)
Of course, if someone discovers that much diamond, the price will plummet and it won't be worth that much (as a matter of fact, diamond companies artificially limit the quantity).
Sivaram Velauthapillai
Sivaram Velauthapillai
Seeking the meaning of life... @slashdot of all places
A woman is never satisfied.
PETA: who wears all the fur coats anyway?
Keep 'em barefoot and pregnant - and don't stand for insubordination. That's the only way.
If I had to have a natural diamond I'd wait for a Martian one.
Or you could buy Canadian diamonds.
Isn't the dimond they mention as the Star of Africa actuall the Star of India? I could be wrong, maybe somebody knows. -xray
Sorry about that, it is the Star of Africa according to the WWW :)
-xray
The Washington Post's story on this says, "this white dwarf has a diameter of 2,500 miles."
But it also says, "Most known white dwarves are smaller than the sun, but BPM 37093 is slightly larger and is the most massive known dwarf."
Both statements cannot be true! If it's larger than the sun, its diameter is certainly not 2,500 miles.
That that is is that that that that is not is not.
We would have a space probe sent within 6 months to survey the possibility of drilling.
They sell stars, or at least the ownership, claim, or naming of them. It's a symbolic thing to claim a star, and that specific star is "yours" and only yours forever. Why not do the same with this overgrown diamond?
Wouldn't it be easier just to say one quattuortrigintillion? ^_^
RTA. The object is a white dwarf. It is luminous; so yes, they are seeing light from 50 light years. The conclusion that the object has a crystalline core though has nothing directly to do with spectral data. So again, RTA.
------ The only greater hazard to your liberty than n politicians is n+1 politicians.
claims first post on the diamond
Give your special someone that gift that lasts until time/space implodes...
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A mathematician is a machine for turning coffee into theorems. - Paul Erdos
When asked to estimate the value of the cosmic jewel, Ronald Winston, CEO of Harry Winston Inc., indicated that such a large diamond probably would depress the value of the market, stating, "Who knows? It may be a self-deflating prophecy because there is so much of it." He added, "It is definitely too big to wear!"
But what about living on it?
"Only one thing, is impossible for god: to find any sense in any copyright law on the planet." Mark Twain
OK, Slashdotters, you've got at most 10 years to land on this space diamond, affix a tiny gold ring, and gift a wife with her diamond anniversary present, commemorating 60 years of marriage. Although perhaps finding a mate in the next 10 years is a tougher challenge. If you get the right girl, though, she might be willing to stay hitched through the century-long roundtrip before she can show it off to her girlfriends. OTOH, after 10 years of marriage to you, she might prefer to go get it herself, in the most extreme "separation" agreement ever. Gentlemen, start your engines!
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make install -not war
I dated girls in college that could wear that in a ring and still make it look small. ;)
There's another route, one that allows you to avoid supporting both the cartel and the (possibly unsavory) people at the source: recycle.
Years ago my mother inherited two diamond rings from my grandmother (her mother-in-law), neither of which was in a style she liked. Rather than letting the rings gather dust or selling them, she found a jeweler who reset both sets of diamonds into a setting she prefered (after recieving my father's blessing to avoid sentiment issues). The jeweler may or may not have melted down the gold for the new setting, too, but I'm not sure. The end result: Grandma's dimonds (with all associated sentimental value) in Mom's ring. Eventually, I wound up using that ring when I proposed to my wife.
In this day and age of mall jewelry stores, it might be tough to find a place that actually makes the stuff (the guy my Mom used was a retired jeweler we knew with decades of experience who was literally working out of his garage as a hobby). If you find a place you trust (i.e. has all the proper references, etc), though, there are catalogs with blank settings that you can use to insert the stones you already own and perhaps add a few more for color (emerald, saphire, etc.). That is what my wife and I did with her wedding ring.
Realistically, you won't save that much money with the labor costs will offset a lot of the value of the recycled stones. You will wind up with an absolutely unique piece for your beloved, one that may have extra sentimental value because of the origin of the stones.
"Prepare for the worst - hope for the best."