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NASA Looking For "Diamonds In The Sky"

I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes "Scientist Charles Bauschlicher and his research team have found a new way to look for 'diamonds in the sky'. It may not be romantic, but diamonds shine especially brightly in the 3.4 to 3.5 micron and 6 to 10 micron infrared ranges, which should make NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope the perfect tool to see them with. Though less common and more monopolized on earth, diamonds are surprisingly common in outer space and the nanometer-sized bits comprise 3% of all the carbon found in meteorites. That means that if meteorite composition is representative of interstellar dust, that dust would contain about 10 quadrillion (1 * 10^16) nanodiamonds per gram."

3 of 101 comments (clear)

  1. Diamonds at the core of gas giants? by CRCulver · · Score: 5, Interesting

    In his novel 2061: Odyssey Three Arthur C. Clarke described the core of Jupiter as nearly solid diamond, formed by the enormous pressure of the gas giant's atmosphere. Is there any probability that this is true, or was it only a science-fiction author's imagination?

    1. Re:Diamonds at the core of gas giants? by delibes · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Maybe - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BPM_37093 But you're unlikely to get your hand on it. Still it's nice to imagine isn't it?

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  2. Re:DeBeers should be happy by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    They pretty much are on Earth already. There's nothing special about diamonds, really. DeBeers has spent decades convincing everyone how great they are because they've locked up the supply chain from end to end. Search on "blood diamonds" some time.