Astronomers Find Diamond Star 4,000 km Wide

tclas writes "The cosmic diamond is a chunk of crystallized 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.'"

Comments

Finally

[Yvan256]

De Beers will be funding NASA from now on!

Re:Finally

[Jeremy Erwin]

On the contrary. I think this will blow the de Beers cartel wide open, assuming that a FTL mining vessel could be equipped.

Re:Finally

[AstroMatt]

Except white dwarf interiors will also have lots of oxygen atoms, and the lattice structure (BCC) is different from that of diamonds (interpenetrating FCC). And if you remove the self gravity the white dwarf matter would no longer be crystallized. And this story dates from 2004 - breaking news! Definitely slashdot-worthy ...

Re:Finally

[Anonymous Coward]

i think debeers will develop their own space program just to maintain their monopoly.

Re:Finally

[CarpetShark]

assuming that a FTL mining vessel could be equipped.

That's a rather large assumption ;)

Personally I'm more worried about the vessel's construction, than how well equipped it is.

Re:Finally

[Issarlk]

De Beers's FTL ISBM will have taken care of it long before.

Re:Finally

[Anonymous Coward]

Somewhere there's some jewish girl telling her husband she wants that for her ring.

Re:Finally

[AvitarX]

At only 50 light years away i would expect a close to light speed ship to be equipped.

Call it 150 years, I can totally see someone investing in that.

Re:Finally

[Pharmboy]

So you bring back 10x more diamonds than exist on the planet to finance the trip. Only problem is, with supply up 1000%, the price will go down by two factors or more as there aren't enough uses to justify that much carbon. People will be using it instead of coal in power plants, or as a cheap gravel replacement for county roads, and there will still be too much.

There is no 3. Profit! in this scenario.

Re:Finally

[NatasRevol]

It seems you don't understand deBeers business strategy.

They already have 1000% supply. They just restrict it in order to keep the price up.

So it would be business as usual for them, just a different source. Of course, they'd also market it as space diamonds, and charge 5x the price.

Re:Finally

[Kalidor]

Only if de Beers doesn't get mining rights. Else they will just store build a store house around it and keep diamonds at the artificial shortage we've come to view as the status quo.

Re:Finally

[backslashdot]

Oh noes! if you remove the self gravity the diamond will collapse? What a ripoff. That's why diamonds that rely on the electromagnetic force are much better.

Wait a second, how do you remove the self gravity of a 4000 km wide solid object of high density?

Re:Finally

[brainboyz]

Unless you plan on bringing the whole star home (fun for everyone when it absorbs Earth), the force of gravity on the chip you bring back will be lessened significantly once it leaves the influence of the star.

Re:Finally

[AstroMatt]

I wrote quickly and clarity suffered - apologies. These nuclei are closer together than the inner orbital for electrons, so no EM forces holding them together. It's a state of matter called degeneracy (have fun with that one, guys :-) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_dwarf http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Degenerate_matter#Electron_degeneracy Matt

Re:Finally

[mea37]

And what tools will you be using to extract diamond from the hot core of a dead star, exactly? This will provide some mission parameters. cliff notes:

Although white dwarfs cool over time, none are yet thought to have cooled to less than a few thousand kelvin. It's hot enough to be incandescant; so much so that we can see its light from 50 lightyears away, even though it's only the size of the Earth.

A white dwarf is extremely dense - figure 1,000 kg / cubic centimeter. If you can approach this object without being crushed by its surface gravity, and cut away some of its matter and lift that matter against the surface gravity, you should probably expect the removed matter to eventually explode as it leaves the gravitational field that keeps it so dense.

For your trouble, you'll be hauling away matter that, from what I can tell, you'll have a hard time recognizing as a diamond. Sure, it's carbon. Sure, it's observed to have crystalized. But it's not properly atomic in structure; it's a dense plasma of degenerate matter. I suspect that what form it takes after it explodes in your cargo hold will depend on how well your cargo hold is able to contain the explosion; my guess is it will take the form of a rapidly expanding cloud of carbon atmos.

Re:Finally

[Anonymous Coward]

Can we blow it apart into smaller bits?

Re:Finally

[slick7]

De Beers will be funding NASA from now on!

On the contrary. I think this will blow the de Beers cartel wide open, assuming that a FTL mining vessel could be equipped.

There's one way to find out.

De Beers, has it been registered?

Re:Finally

[EvilBudMan]

Isn't LSD just a for of crystallized carbon? It's sounds like that's what they really found by the name.

Re:Finally

[tepples]

[De Beers] already have 1000% supply. They just restrict it in order to keep the price up.

But does De Beers want to start a price war with Apollo Diamond, whose jewelry uses chemical vapor deposition diamonds that are even purer than the ones De Beers digs up?

Re:Finally

[ScrewMaster]

On the contrary. I think this will blow the de Beers cartel wide open, assuming that a FTL mining vessel could be equipped.

Yes, well, keep in mind that it's not just a simple matter of scooping up diamonds and filling your vessel's holds. The thing may only be 4,000 kilometers across, but it's still going to have a star's gravitational field.

Re:Finally

[mea37]

"Can we blow it apart into smaller bits?"

The gravity may be a bigger problem than you realize.

IIRC most whtie dwarfs have a very dense atmosphere (density determined by gravity). I doubt an explosion of any reasonable magnitude, if it occured outside the atmosphere, would affect the core. In fact, to eject any of the core material beyond the crushing gravity well, I suspect your best bet would be to trigger an explosion at the very center of the white dwarf. It would have to be a very powerful explosion (many orders of magnitude more powerful than anything humans have produced to date), and it could not depend on any complex configuration of matter; pretty much any explosive device I can think of would be destroyed before it could detonate.

There is one way to coax a white dwarf to explode: Feed it enough matter and it should produce a supernova. You're not going to get little chunks of diamond, though. Between the process of supernova itself and the fact that any surviving carbon plasma would be in open space with no massive gravitational field to hold it together, I predict you get an expanding cloud of carbon. (And oxygen, and maybe a few other materials mixed in as well.)

Re:Finally

[Anonymous Coward]

Even better, diamonds would make awesome heatsinks. Great electrical isolation and awesome thermal conductivity. Cheap as dirt diamonds would solve a lot of problems with both high voltage electricity and consumer electronics.

Re:Finally

[Anonymous Coward]

3. Threaten to set it down gently, on Earth, if they do not pay you. Do your best Dr. Evil impression when you make the demand.

Re:Finally

[Lotana]

That sounds absolutely awesome!! Like blowing up a hydrogen balloon only so many magnitudes more fun!

That is it: From now on the ultimate goal of the human race is to turn at least one white dwarf into a supernova!

Lets get cracking boys!

Good

[dtml-try MyNick]

Good news, if this doesn't get the commercial space-race going nothing will ;)

Re:Good

[sakdoctor]

Diamonds are worthless

Re:Good

[Chris Mattern]

Untrue; their extreme hardness makes them useful for many industrial applications, and their excellent thermal conductivity is valuable in many others. It *is* true that the current prices of gem-quality diamond is horribly inflated by the DeBeers cartel.

Re:Good

[Anonymous Coward]

Tell that to your girlfriend! Oh I forgot, this is /. Never mind.

Re:Good

[GameboyRMH]

There's no profit to be had in bringing materials back from space as long as you're hauling stuff from A to B - with the possible exception of He3 on the moon, because it's so close (relatively speaking), and could be used in fusion power. I haven't looked into it much but it seems somewhat plausible, unlike bringing diamonds back even from a planet as close as Mars.

Re:Good

[Anonymous Coward]

I have. She agrees with me, and wants me to never buy her a diamond.

Believe it or not, women know how to use their brains, too.

4km or 4,000km wide?

[maroberts]

If its only 4km I'll let you have it.....

P.S. This BBC story is from 2004 - slow news day, Slashdot?

Re:4km or 4,000km wide?

[Anonymous Coward]

P.S. This BBC story is from 2004 - slow news day, Slashdot?

And slashdot covered it then too:
http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/02/14/0123206

Kind of pathetic how often an ancient news story will work its way to the front page.

Re:4km or 4,000km wide?

[NatasRevol]

There's a profit line in there somewhere...

Re:4km or 4,000km wide?

[blue_teeth]

I think it is BBC site design fault and let us be forgiving to the submitter. I wrote to BBC in June 2010 for similar problem.

See below:

From: xxxx
Sent: 04 June 2010 04:26
To: NewsOnline Comments
Subject: Feedback [NewsWatch]

From: xxx
Email address: xxx

COMMENTS: Hello,

Your section "Most popular stories now" with "Most Read" seems to be
hijacked with old stories.

For instance, stories appear as most read when they are actually
very old.

Woman jailed for testicle attack - 10 February 2005

Once they appear on "Most Popular...", they will continue to be read.
Is this a system design problem or slow news at BBC?

Regards,

REPLY:

Thank you for your email and for your interest in the BBC News website.

The content of the most popular module is taken directly from our usage
statistics. There is no editorial intervention. Stories referenced from
blogs and social networking sites tend to have a much longer shelf life
than other stories and to have many lives. Consequently, it is not
unusual for older stories to appear a number of times in this module.

Regards
BBC News Website
http://news.bbc.co.uk/

Re:4km or 4,000km wide?

[burisch_research]

It's the BBC's fault. Right now http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science_and_environment/ shows on the right-hand side a list of the 5 most popular news stories, and #1 is this article from 2004. This appeared in this list a while before the slashdot article. (a day before?). When I followed the link originally, I was puzzled by the old-style layout, but didn't notice the 2004 date.

And BBC messed up with the original article because technically it's a white dwarf, degenerate matter, and not an actual pure diamond as we would think of diamonds.

Re:4km or 4,000km wide?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's the BBC's fault. Right now http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science_and_environment/ [bbc.co.uk] shows on the right-hand side a list of the 5 most popular news stories, and #1 is this article from 2004. This appeared in this list a while before the slashdot article. (a day before?). When I followed the link originally, I was puzzled by the old-style layout, but didn't notice the 2004 date.

Stumble Upon just took me there....Every once in a while it'll start flogging old stories. Maybe whoever submitted it saw it that way and didn't notice the date.
That would also add to the popularity on the BBC site.

Slow day, Slashdot?

[AndyFewt]

BBC news article: Last Updated: Monday, 16 February 2004, 15:31 GMT
Over 6 years old, slow day slashdot?

Re:Slow day, Slashdot?

[EricTheRed]

Whats worse is that I read this yesterday as it was trending on the bbc news site... and the fact that it was in an ancient layout for their site didn't cause me to spot the date either...

Re:Slow day, Slashdot?

[L4t3r4lu5]

Ho. Lee. Crap.

Bonus points: If you look at the "Artists Impression" picture, you'll see that it's a perfect sphere, with a perfect brilliant cut diamond in the centre! Who knew ET was a diamantaire.

Re:Slow day, Slashdot?

[Haedrian]

Well the star's still there at least.

Re:Slow day, Slashdot?

[atrocious cowpat]

Well, what we *really* know is it was there 56 years ago (actually ~59 years ago, according to the distance given in the wikipedia-entry (53 ly) and the date of the press release (Feb. 2004). :)

Re:Slow day, Slashdot?

[bill_mcgonigle]

2004 to 2010 is like the blink of an eye on a stellar timescale.

Re:Slow day, Slashdot?

[Inda]

You have to wonder who is bumping these stories up on the BBC? Only last month the story about Indians having small cocks, and condoms being too large, made the list for a week. I suspect 4channers...

And what stupid DB must the BBC use if the old template still pops up?

Re:Slow day, Slashdot?

[Anonymous Coward]

Now that is news for nerds!!

Re:Slow day, Slashdot?

[Anonymous Coward]

I know this was on reddit and it was a little while before anyone pointed out the age of the article. So, they did their part to bump the story up.

Re:Slow day, Slashdot?

[cravey]

http://science.slashdot.org/story/04/02/14/0123206/The-Galaxys-Largest-Diamond

Re:Slow day, Slashdot?

[gtall]

"Only last month the story about Indians having small cocks, and condoms being too large, made the list for a week." They seem to replay that story about every 6-8 months. I just figured the BBC just liked to tweaks the Indians out of boredom.

Re:Slow day, Slashdot?

[jd]

Does anyone know if there were any strange space/time anomalies around de Beers when this story first first broke? If so, we can say for certain the star-diamond isn't there now.

Re:Slow day, Slashdot?

[Anonymous Coward]

BBC news article: Last Updated: Monday, 16 February 2004, 15:31 GMT

Over 6 years old, slow day slashdot?

I put it in the queue then. They've just now gotten around to posting it.

Re:Slow day, Slashdot?

[Pharmboy]

Look, the star is 50 light years away, so the fact that the news got here in just 6 years goes to show you have fast the news really is here on Slashdot. That is almost a full factor faster than light!

Re:Slow day, Slashdot?

[Jedi Alec]

So 1 website links to an article, causing its popularity rating to spike which pops it back to the top of the list, after which a whole bunch of people notice it and start feeding it into other websites hence making it even more popular...

Digital self-propelling necromancy?

Great...

[mseidl]

Something else I can't afford but my wife will nag me about...

Re:Great...

[PolygamousRanchKid]

Something else I can't afford but my wife will nag me about...

Forget about nagging . . .

The cosmic diamond is a chunk of crystallised carbon, 4,000 km across, some 50 light-years from the Earth in the constellation Centaurus.

"Honey, I'm just going out for 50 light-years to pick up a diamond for you!"

When you get back, all your stuff will have been thrown out the windows onto the front lawn.

When guys go out, they never get back on time . . .

Re:Great...

[MadKeithV]

Pah, going out for 50 light-years. I can make that run in less than 12 parsecs.

Re:Great...

[srealm]

50 light-years EACH WAY don't forget.

When you get back, she certainly won't be worth the diamond anymore - because you really won't want to 'hit that' in 100 years, even assuming you can travel at light speed ;P

And if you remember the 80's documentary "The Navigator", where he was gone 4 years and everyone else aged 12, then by extension, 100 light years will turn into 300 years.

Re:Great...

[burisch_research]

Depends on your relativistic tau factor. Close to the speed of light, the more you accelerate, the higher you drive Tau, which is the ratio between your time rate and that of your observer.

Appropriate name for the star

[mrjb]

They'd affectionately call it "Twinkle twinkle".

Investment noobie

[Anonymous Coward]

So are you saying that diamonds are not a good long-term investment?

Garbage

[__aaelyr464]

DeBeers has taught me that the only REAL diamond is from mined from the earth, possibly covered in blood.

Re:Garbage

[Pojut]

"My favorite diamond only appears on the tip of the tailbone of Ethiopian babies. They...they debone the babies. I know, I know, it sounds horrible when you say it out loud. But if you saw it...stunning. Absolutely stunning." -Sarah Silverman

6 year old Dupe

[SMoynihan]

This is a story from 2004, though it keeps popping up in the "most read" list on BBC news. Also, it was reported on Slashdot 6 years ago.

Re:6 year old Dupe

[Paltin]

Is this a record for longest time to dupe?

Where Is All The Leaked B.P. Gulf Oil?

[Anonymous Coward]

should be news, not this CRAP.

Yours In Detroit,
Kilgore Trout

Re:Where Is All The Leaked B.P. Gulf Oil?

[maxwell demon]

Oil is a source of carbon. Diamond is made of carbon. Therefore the answer is obvious: The oil was beamed up to form the diamond star.

It's not just slow

[Anonymous Coward]

http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/02/14/0123206

What is the record for thread necromancy? LOL

[Anonymous Coward]

OMG, what is the record for thread necromancy? I think we should start a new thread on the subject.

Are NASA using the imperial system again?

[ionix5891]

theres quite a difference between 4KM (title) and 4000KM (article summary)

Or are slashdot admins smoking da weed again?

Re:Are NASA using the imperial system again?

[benjymous]

Now concentrate this time, Dougal. These chunks of crystallised carbon are very small; those are far away...

Re:Are NASA using the imperial system again?

[SMoynihan]

Going by the last time Slashdot reported this, it's 4,000 km. Or 2,500 miles, as Slashdot-units were imperial way back in 2004...

Re:Are NASA using the imperial system again?

[Anonymous Coward]

And there's quite a difference between km (kilometer) and KM (kelvinmega).

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Blood diamond?

[Jailbrekr]

I'd like to see a Nigerian try to smuggle THAT diamond in his butt.

Re:Blood diamond?

[L4t3r4lu5]

I have a URL for you, but cannot post it because I am at work.

The first part is the name of a domesticated animal of the Bovidae family. The second part (appended immediately to the previous word) is the TLD for Sweden. The TLD for the domain is the NYSE abbreviation for Cemex SAB de CV.

Hope this helps.

Re:Blood diamond?

[RivenAleem]

I am a Nigerian Prince and I have a URL for you, which when accessed will give you access to 10 million dollers,

Unfortunately I cannot post the link on this site, but if you visit wvw.stealyouraccountdata.c0m I can give you the direct link to near unlimited wealth!

Please to help me as if 2 thousands of people visit the site, I shall be freed from jail. I am Nigerian prince, and have lots of money, so you can be sure this no is scam. I also recently found 4,000km large diamond which I try to smuggle out from jail. I share with you when I am free.

Sincrly
Nigerian Prince

Re:Blood diamond?

[BitZtream]

Stinger could do it.

Re:Blood diamond?

[rubycodez]

goatse man recently tried to smuggle the diamond star in his rectum, but he was too loose and it kept falling out

Not a black hole?

[stevegee58]

I thought old stars of our Sun's size and larger became black holes when they shuffled off their mortal coils.

Re:Not a black hole?

[Anonymous Coward]

No, our Sun isn't nearly large enough to become a black hole.

Re:Not a black hole?

[Anonymous Coward]

It takes a star to be about ten times the size of our sun, minimum, to be heavy enough to create a black hole. Our sun will go: Red Giant -> White Dwarf -> Brown Dwarf at the end of its life cycle. Supernovae and Black holes require more energetic and large stars than our tiny yellow dwarf star. We should be glad for this, because they also live alot longer than larger stars.

Re:Not a black hole?

[countSudoku()]

No, our Sun is too small for a black hole. This (making "diamonds") should happen to our star, from the wiki:

Helium fusion will begin when the core temperature reaches around 100,000,000 K and will produce carbon

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sun#Life_cycle

So, once it burns up all the hydrogen, then the helium will be consumed and produce the carbon, and the shiny shiny diamonds will come next, then ???, then profit!!1! Dibs!

Re:Not a black hole?

[Neil Boekend]

The sun is spot on to become a white dwarf.
Both white and brown dwarfs are not fusing any matter (and thus they are not really stars) and are heavy enough for electron degeneration (and thus they are not planets). The difference is in the way they form, their mass and their size.
Forming: A brown dwarf is a direct result of the star forming process. It has never fused matter. A white dwarf is a result of a burned out star. It has fused but the hydrogen and helium are gone
Mass: A brown dwarf is 10-90 jupiter masses, a white dwarf is up to about 1500 Jupiter masses
size: Due to electron degeneration a heavier object will actually get smaller. A brown dwarf is about 440 Mm, while a white dwarf at the max mass can be around a Mm. The star in this article is 4 Mm so it should be about 1.1 solar mass (the max has been calculated at 1.44 solar mass)

Why carbon?

[Anonymous Coward]

So, my basic understanding is that a star will fuse elements up to iron, so what happened to all the other elements? Is a carbon diamond the only stable thing that formed?

Re:Why carbon?

[Arker]

I think you need a bigger star to make heavier elements. One this size comes down to mostly carbon and oxygen. And what it forms cant really be a diamond, since it does have quite a bit of oxygen. But apparently it's a crystal of some sort.

Re:Why carbon?

[ArcherB]

So, my basic understanding is that a star will fuse elements up to iron, so what happened to all the other elements? Is a carbon diamond the only stable thing that formed?

I believe it depends on the size of the star. Stars of this size are simply not large enough to fuse anything beyond carbon. Once it hits carbon, that's it, it stops.

Re:Why carbon?

[Neil Boekend]

Not really. really heavy elements are not created in stars, just by stars. They cost energy to create and give no energy. They are created in the massive energy pulses called supernovae.

Re:Why carbon?

[Arker]

But only rather large stars go supernova.

CmdrTaco, considered living in a GROUP HOME?

[Anonymous Coward]

Gone senile? Got amnesia, you old douche?
 
THIS ARTICLE is SIX YEARS OLD.

Re:CmdrTaco, considered living in a GROUP HOME?

[donutello]

FTL travel does strange things to the timeline.

Re:CmdrTaco, considered living in a GROUP HOME?

[Mister Whirly]

Well, in theory. We don't know the reality, and may never.

Re:CmdrTaco, considered living in a GROUP HOME?

[MiniMike]

If diamonds are forever, so are stories about them...

I'm now waiting for this star to transit Saturn so we can have stories about "Astronomers find giant diamond ring in space".

Re:CmdrTaco, considered living in a GROUP HOME?

[commodore64_love]

>>>THIS ARTICLE is SIX YEARS OLD.

That figures.

A submission about an old 2004 article gets promoted to slashdot's front page, but my submission about SeaMonkey's new HTML5 browser gets nada. :-|

That could be worth more than three months salary.

[Anonymous Coward]

How many carats would that be???

Mondegreen

[srussia]

Apparently, they heard the Beatles lyrics as "Lucy in the sky's a diamond".

That's going...

[Anonymous Coward]

to take some effort if you were going to smuggle it past airport security.

More info

[L4t3r4lu5]

Wikipedia
SIMBAD

Not QUITE what the song's believed to be about...

[Anonymous Coward]

Astronomers have decided to call the star 'Lucy' after the Beatles song, Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds.

Writers and music lovers then sighed deeply and have decided to collectively issue a dope-slap to astronomers for the terrible joke.

Re:That's not how they work

[Just_Say_Duhhh]

No, I don't think De Beers will be funding NASA. They may start blowing up any attempts to get into space. They might even want to take out the ISS (and as anyone who has seen Congo can tell you, with De Beers' massive diamond-powered lasers, the ISS is a sitting duck!) You see, they already have enough (should I say more than enough) diamonds. They just have to stop everyone else from getting access to diamonds, which would cause the price to fall.

Re:It could still be a blood diamond.

[adavies42]

i think i saw that stargate sg-1 episode....

Carat weight

[Anonymous Coward]

My off the cuff calculation puts that somewhere around 150 quadrillion carats. Suddenly, the engagement ring I bought my fiance doesn't seem very impressive.

Get rich quick scheme

[Lord Lode]

This allows a new get rich quick scheme:

1) Fly 50 years to there at the speed of light
2) Mine the diamonds
3) Fly back 50 years
4) If you were able to get older than 100 years, you're now rich, enjoy!

Re:Get rich quick scheme

[dkuntz]

Unless you go by the theory that time doesnt flow at the same speed if you're traveling the speed of light, and you might not age, or age in reverse... or just turn to a puddle of primordial ooze..

Re:Get rich quick scheme

[Locke2005]

Yeah, but you'd be a fuckin' rich puddle of primordial ooze!

Yes, current theory (e.g. The Twins Paradox indicates you wouldn't age at all while traveling at the speed of light. Of course, steering is also a bit difficult while traveling at that speed, and your kinetic energy would be astronomical...

Re:Get rich quick scheme

[nangus]

I am fairly sure that infinity > astronomical.

Re:Get rich quick scheme

[mjwx]

4) If you were able to get older than 100 years, you're now rich, enjoy!

Your children can have it converted into coal, the rarest substance on earth.

Re:Get rich quick scheme

[Fumus]

Let's say you travel at 98% of speed of light. In 100 years that have passed this way, the world around you (and Earth) would age by tens or hundreds of thousands of years.

I don't know physics well enough to calculate that, but feel free to post the result anyone.

Arthur C. Clarke reference

[bill_mcgonigle]

The article is probably wrong. It's likely a reference to 2061, where they find that Mt. Zeus on Ganymede is a giant diamond. The message sent back to Earth is, "LUCY IS HERE".

Re:Arthur C. Clarke reference

[Provocateur]

Please mod the post above Informative.

I guess the submitter only knows his Beatles, and not his Clarke.

Re:Arthur C. Clarke reference

[doconnor]

Actually Mt. Zeus was on Europa, not Ganymede.

The giant diamond was one of many ejected from Jupiter when it ignited in 2010 and collided with Europa.

Re:Arthur C. Clarke reference

[scharkalvin]

In the 2061 novel Jupitor underwent contraction to implode into a star. Being composed of Hydrogen and Methane (which is part carbon and part hydrogen) the emplosion caused the methane to split into its' compoent parts and the carbon was ejected as diamond which landed on Europa. I'm not sure how correct the science here is, but it sounds possible. Clark called the mountain 'Lucy' after the Beatles song. Interresting to speculate that the Beatles would still be popular in 2061, which will probably be true.

Re:Arthur C. Clarke reference

[bill_mcgonigle]

Actually Mt. Zeus was on Europa, not Ganymede.

Ah, thanks. The old noodle is a bit rusty - a good read back in high school!

Re:Arthur C. Clarke reference

[Anonymous Coward]

And for further reference: Jupiter had been ignited into a miniature star, and was known as Lucifer - hence "Lucy"

Re:Arthur C. Clarke reference

[nangus]

Probably still not available for digital download.

Re:It could still be a blood diamond.

[jank1887]

enders game + a diamond?

In other space-based news

[jitterman]

The Cassini spacecraft found something interesting in Saturn's rings.

Wait... what year is this?

This Star is now Diamonds

[RivenAleem]

Old Spice Man strikes again!

Lucy

[Anonymous Coward]

I wonder if they are aware that Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds was named after LSD. So, just maybe that name Lucy is slightly out of context, unless that piece of carbon is psychedelic as well.

Worth it?

[Chemisor]

A 4000km sphere has the volume of 3.35e19 m^3. In diamond, that masses at 1.18e20 tons, or 5.9e26 carats. At $5500/carat it's worth $3e30.
Current railroad rates are 3c/ton*mile (there being no current space freight rates), so you'd pay $1e33 to bring it here.
To summarize:

A 6e26 carat diamond: $3e30
Transportation: $1e33
Giving your gold digger girlfriend an engagement ring she is not fat enough to wear: priceless

Amazing cleavage!

[bl8n8r]

Wonder how that slice got taken out of it in the pic - and where it went!

Big Gong

[toxonix]

'The white dwarf is not only radiant but also rings like a gigantic gong" What does a diamond gong that size sound like? "BLING!!!"

From TFA:

[insnprsn]

Last Updated: Monday, 16 February 2004, 15:31 GMT

My first thought reading the headline was, another one? Wait there's already a diamond star named Lucy.

Re:From TFA:

[insnprsn]

I meant to include

This is not news

FIFTY-SIX

[Oxford_Comma_Lover]

But the story is not six years old. The diamond is fifty light years away.

"Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" is from 1967. The light they saw six years ago was from about 1954.

It pre-dates Lucy by about 13 years.

Re:FIFTY-SIX

[jd]

The star probably crystallized a good deal earlier, though. Even the light was a dupe.

Re:FIFTY-SIX

[numbski]

We're splitting hairs. With the exception of the Sun, moon, and some VERY near planet/stars, every time we look up at the sky, we're looking a looooong way back into the past. Just about everything you see in the sky "happened" a long time ago. Part of the reason that SETI isn't likely to succeed. Not that it isn't a valiant effort, but anything we would "hear" would be from so long ago that the civilization we're hearing may not even exist anymore, and inversely, anyone that might "hear" our RF transmissions will not have heard them yet, and won't for a good time to come still, and when they do, they're going to "hear" Howdy Doody. Our society has evolved and advanced quit a bit since that point, and if they were to reply with similar tech hoping to communicate, we won't be receiving that transmission for quite some time past *that*.

In short, our entire existence is so transient that, although it is great hubris to think we're alone, the end result is the same. We probably *are not* alone, but we'll very likely never meet any "others".

This whole discussion always sets me back into depression, realizing how short and pointless our own existence is. We scramble around, trying to be the best amongst our own, and sadly the whole thing is no different that a bunch of ants scurrying around in a pile. The only difference is scale. We arrive, we're lucky to be here more than 60 years or so, and then we're gone. We don't get to keep any of it, we don't get anything. We exist to not exist anymore. The concept of life is really sad - you become cognizant of "self" only to realize that it is so temporary that well - anyway. Religion (in my case, Christianity) winds up speaking to this by saying in essence "you don't have to die". I struggle because believing that is to say that all of what I see above my head that happened so long ago - the one that made all of *that* somehow, someway, some*why*, inserted themselves into our existence to teach us some 2000 years ago (still, long after what we see above our heads happened), then allowed the collective "us" of a very small group of humans to murder him, and then revived three days later to pay for things the collective "we" had done wrong, so that "we" would no longer have to sacrifice the lives of other things in order to live past death.

My analytical brain just about bursts at the conflict. I can only envision God as a creator of either the "multiverse" (string theory), or just "our" universe/reality - which makes us more like rats in a cage, and even then, the compartmentalization of my psyche which wants to have faith and follow my upbringing and "believe and be saved" while all the while learning all that I can while I'm here so it can all just go away anyway.

The "human condition" is a term that gets used when you're young, and then it hits you what precisely it is. Let's not split hairs over time. On the scale of time we're dealing with, you and I are a single "tick" on that clock.

Re:FIFTY-SIX

[Captain Splendid]

Great post. As to the pointlessness, I find trying to be happy and trying to help other people be happy more than enough justification for me.

Re:FIFTY-SIX

[Beardo the Bearded]

I'd like to recommend "Star Maker" by Olaf Stapledon.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Maker

Re:FIFTY-SIX

[jbengt]

I'm by no means fluent with relativity issues, but as I understand it, light we see now from an object 50 light years away did not happen a "looooong" time ago. The speed of light does not define a distant "past" for objects far away. Rather, the speed of light defines the limit of knowing whether "before" and "after" have any meaning at all between objects far apart or moving at greatly different velocities.

Re:FIFTY-SIX

[master0ne]

50 light years is relatively close, cosmically speaking. It has taken 50 years from light from this diamond to reach us, thats pretty damn quick, the point of the GP is about intelligent life out there, they are likely hundreds of millions of light years away, if not more. The milky way galaxy alone (but a small drop in the bucket cosmically speaking) is 100,000 light years across, and distances only get astronomically greater from there, so yes light from this diamond is not from a "long time ago" but many things in the sky which we have observed are from a LONG LONG LONG time ago.

Re:FIFTY-SIX

[sexconker]

Derp - you're an idiot.

Planet 1 starts broadcasting shit.
Planet 2 hears it a long time later.

Planet 2 may not be able to communicate with planet 1 now, but they now know of Planet 1's intelligent civilization, and will continue to listen and observe.

Planet 2 will then figure out when Planet 1 will start hearing things from them based on the distance between the two planets, and will maintain all majorly-different communication methods capable of reaching Planet 1 for at least the amount of time of a round trip.

Planet 1 will do the same upon discovering Planet 2's transmissions, and they will be able to communicate (with a serious delay).

You're suggesting that the entire civilization / solar system may be wiped out before a round trip after the first signal is received. This is possible, but before then, listening in without being able to talk back is still extremely valuable.

A simple bit of logic on the part of both planets will lead to the obvious conclusion: If you want to talk to someone, you'll need to listen for their response.

Last I checked, we still know how to send and receive basic radio transmissions and there's no sign that the laws of physics will make this impossible.

Your pathetic whining is the equivalent of saying that you'll throw away your mail box if it takes more than 3 days to get a response from your prison lover, who had a daily stream of letters going to you with 10 days of lead time (because the prison screens the mail, causing the average trip time to be 10 days).

Re:FIFTY-SIX

[commodore64_love]

>>>In short, our entire existence is so transient that, although it is great hubris to think we're alone, the end result is the same. We probably *are not* alone, but we'll very likely never meet any "others".

Geee.

(Walks over to safe and removes gun and bullets). You really know how to cheer a guy up. (Puts gun away). On second thought since we're all just fleeting rats, here today and gone tomorrow, there's really no reason for me to "abstain". Time to run away and rut just like a rabbit with every piece of female I can get.

By the way that's a cool spaceship.
I think I'll steal it.

Re:FIFTY-SIX

[commodore64_love]

>>>Rather, the speed of light defines the limit of knowing whether "before" and "after" have any meaning at all between objects far apart or moving at greatly different velocities.

Does anybody know what this guy is talking about???

It's not the complicated. Suppose NASA spots a supernova in 2011... it's 2000 lightyears away. That means that star actually blew up when Jesus was still a teenager.

Re:FIFTY-SIX

[commodore64_love]

It's unlikely other civilizations will hear Howdy Doody or anything else. The radio and TV signals fade below the noise level of the galaxy after just 5-10 lightyears.

And now that we've switched to Digital Radio and TV, it's extremely unlikely that other civilization could decode the jumbled signal, even if they had a passing warpship pick it up.

Re:FIFTY-SIX

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd like to recommend "Buddhism" by Siddhartha Gautama.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddhism

Re:FIFTY-SIX

[pclminion]

It's not the complicated. Suppose NASA spots a supernova in 2011... it's 2000 lightyears away. That means that star actually blew up when Jesus was still a teenager.

The phrase "X actually happened at the same time as Y" is fundamentally incompatible with relativity. You unfortunately missed the point the GP was making.

Consider on Earth, you are making a phone call to somebody on the other side of the world. It goes via satellite, so you have a second or two of latency between you. Would you say that "I'm not hearing what my friend is saying, I'm hearing what he said a second or two in the past?" Well, you might say that. You might find some alternative method of communicating that has a lesser latency (such as a land line, which ironically will get there faster than geosync satellite transmissions). In that case, yes, you could say that your friend was "in the past" because there is a way to reduce the latency.

With light, it's different. You're just screwed. You just can never get there any faster. Thus, whether some seen event is "in the past" is irrelevant -- it's not like you could have seen it any sooner anyway.

Relativity is about spacetime, not space and time. The idea that hugely distant events happened in the "past" is like saying there is an absolute time which permeates the universe. That's total nonsense.

Re:FIFTY-SIX

[Anonymous Coward]

Thank you. Just downloaded the book from Project Gutenberg: http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks06/0601841.txt

Re:FIFTY-SIX

[numbski]

"Relativity is about spacetime, not space and time. The idea that hugely distant events happened in the "past" is like saying there is an absolute time which permeates the universe. That's total nonsense."

Actually, that's precisely what I was saying. So you're saying the concept of "concurrency" is impossible when you pass distance X?

Re:FIFTY-SIX

[Anonymous Coward]

Those contradictions are probably exactly why Judaism took one look at the fledgling religion that was Christianity and said "No thanks." Christianity only really took hold since it was forced on the majority of the Roman Empire. Judaism of course has the benefit of coming into being between the woefully sad "We have some morals but do what you want, the gods hate you, and when you die you exist in the horrible shadowlands of death forever" that was before it and the irresponsible "you don't actually have to be a better person, just have faith and believe or go to hell forever (sometimes even if you believe)" so it focused on the wonderful intermediate: "God likes you and wants you to be good, will punish you if you're bad, and there's a next life that isn't really affected by all that so don't worry about that part"

Not that I'm saying Judaism is the religion everyone should be, but I believe that this is one case where the "expansion back" was worse than the original release (the later expansions just get worse and even more convoluted including Islam's attempted reboot of the series). I also think that the Persian Empire was a far better culture/place and wish they had destroyed the Greeks, but that's also wishful thinking.

Re:FIFTY-SIX

[BraksDad]

We're splitting hairs....

with that size diamond we could easily split heirs.

Re:FIFTY-SIX

[ultranova]

he point of the GP is about intelligent life out there, they are likely hundreds of millions of light years away, if not more. The milky way galaxy alone (but a small drop in the bucket cosmically speaking) is 100,000 light years across,

And it contains about 100 billion stars, most of which likely contain planetary systems. Even our very Solar System has at least two locations besides Earth that have reasonable chances of having life (Mars and Titan). Add the fact that life on Earth has been producing more and more intelligent life forms through its whole history - hardly surprising, since more intelligence allows much better coordination - and it starts seeming very likely that there's life close to us.

Besides, one thing you need to remember is that the Universe is still very young. The heavier-than-hydrogen materials that make up our bodies were formed in first-generation stars; Earth is likely amongst the oldest planets in the Universe that can support life, which would imply that we are one of the first - if not the first - civilizations to arise after the Big Bang.

So, let's start investing more to space flight and take over the Universe!

Re:FIFTY-SIX

[dasacc22]

Human condition indeed. All I can add is, and don't let the ideals of interrogating cliches interrupt this thought, but the very thing that we as people despair over is a source for magnificent acts, and in performing these, is the very thing that makes us most vulnerable. So when we manage to achieve a high level of cognitive dissonance, lets not just go and rationalize it all away (incorrectly I might add), but let's open ourselves to something more and we might just find ourselves on the opposite side of despair. Sorry to be all magical/mystical towards the end bit there but I dont know what the right words are for my own recent experiences that are hardly unique and probably documented by someone, somewhere, already.

Re:FIFTY-SIX

[commodore64_love]

>>>whether some seen event is "in the past" is irrelevant -- it's not like you could have seen it any sooner anyway.

Completely disagree. (1) It's not irrelevant to realize a supernova blew-up in 11 AD and we're only seeing it now. And (2) yes if we ever invented a way to travel that far, like a warp drive or wormhole, we'd be able to see this supernova in its present state (an expanding gas cloud two thousand years old).

Re:FIFTY-SIX

[pclminion]

So you're saying the concept of "concurrency" is impossible when you pass distance X?

Concurrent in who's reference frame? Whether two events are simultaneous depends how fast you're going.

Imagine an alien travelling at nearly the speed of light, from a distance of 4000 light years -- shooting right by the supernova, heading toward earth. Such an alien will see present day earth at almost the same instant as he sees the supernova, because his time is so dilated. If he goes fast enough, the events might happen so close together that he might call them simultaneous.

So in his reference frame, the star didn't blow up 2000 years ago, it blew up a fraction of a second ago. And it isn't justified to say that what we saw in our frame is somehow more "proper" than what he saw in his.

Re:FIFTY-SIX

[fastasleep]

But the story is not six years old. The diamond is fifty light years away.

"Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" is from 1967. The light they saw six years ago was from about 1954.

It pre-dates Lucy by about 13 years.

These people disagree:

Why are Stars Millions of Light Years Away?

Answer: Brendon, what a question! Yes, we know from the dates God gives us in the Bible that He did create the whole universe about 6,000 years ago. When we hear the term light-year, we need to realize it is not a measure of time but a measure of distance, telling us how far away something is. Distant stars and galaxies might be millions of light-years away, but that doesn’t mean that it took millions of years for the light to get here, it just means it is really far away!

When God created the universe, everything was already working perfectly, exactly how He wanted it to work. So, I believe the stars could be seen (however God did that) on earth as soon as God spoke them into existence. Keep enjoying the splendor of the night sky, but remember that God created it to display His glory so we could behold how wonderful and powerful our Creator really is!

Re:FIFTY-SIX

[numbski]

Crap.

I'm busted on my own hubris. One tends to forget that *we* are in motion. We're not fixed.

It's the old Back to the Future joke of what would have really happened. Delorian disappears, reappears in space, dog dies. :P

Re:FIFTY-SIX

[chromas]

They had it right. See, the dog did travel one minute into outer space (where the Earth was one minute ago) and ended up driving around for exactly five years and 86,399 minutes, looking for more plutonium. He then recalculated (accounting for space—for some reason, the Doc forgot about the space in spacetime) and went back five years. And that's why the DeLorean was cold. Damn cold.

Is there a colony of humans near this star?

[icannotthinkofaname]

This was the plot of an episode of Doctor Who back in 2007 ("Utopia"). In that story, Utopia was said to be a planet where the skies were made of diamonds.

Maybe the Master is on his way to our time right now to be elected Prime Minister of Great Britain?

impossible

[tverbeek]

This is obviously a hoax. Any early elementary school student can tell you that "diamond" and "star" are two entirely different shapes.

Iron is the new Diamond

[Godskitchen]

If we lived on that planet, we might be gazing covetously at Earth for its core of iron.

Re:That's not how they work

[SomeoneGotMyNick]

They just have to stop everyone else from getting access to diamonds, which would cause the price to fall.

Or just stop buying diamonds...

Screw up their supply by eliminating demand. Also, enforce July as a "no-sex" month so we don't have people being born in April.

Shiney!

[Philomage]

[no body]

This "news" is almost 7 years old?

[hsoftdev17]

This is the same info that came out ages ago. Even the BBC link happily reports "Last Updated: Monday, 16 February 2004, 15:31 GMT" Why is this appearing on slashdot today?

Re:It could still be a blood diamond.

[rhsanborn]

Or Iron Sunrise.

Forgiveness to the submitter?

[maroberts]

The BBC post the dates of their articles at the top of them. Any semi literate subbie could see that it is an old article that is in the "most read" list. Even the old style design of the page screams that it is a dated story.

I don't think forgiveness is necessary. Sending to a re-edukasion camp for 20 years would be so much more effective.

Not worth that much.

[formfeed]

While you all marvel about the size of this diamond, let's not forget this is an uncut diamond we're talking about.

Re:That's not how they work

[bigpat]

They might even want to take out the ISS (and as anyone who has seen Congo [imdb.com] can tell you

You had me until "Congo". I think the list of anyone who has seen Congo is just pretty much you and I, my friend. And that list is one person too long.

relay point

[hierophanta]

so what can we actually do with it today? - I think we could shoot lasers at it to refract out - kind of like a network relay. Might be usable for SETI

Re:That's not how they work

[Captain Splendid]

No, I saw it too. Read the book beforehand as well. Yes, I'm poorer in spirit as a result.

Ah!

[interval1066]

I was wondering where I left that thing.

Tom Swift, Where are you?

[Anonymous Coward]

I am going to sell Diamond Futures short, then find my copy of Tom Swift when he brought down the planetoid of Sapphire(circa 1965). I'll have that baby on the surface and make a mint both the futures market and selling industrial diamonds!

Ring

[Anonymous Coward]

Can I get a ringworld to go with that?

Spectra

[cervo]

It has a name, spectra...just watch out for star stealers trying to wrap the planet up in net and tow it away.... Maybe Rainbow Bright will come and save the day....

"largest" thingy

[vague disclaimer]

P.S. This BBC story is from 2004 - slow news day, Slashdot?

It is probably getting pulled up as a similar item to the "largest chocolate bar" story, which is current.

Maybe affects Dark Matter?

[DontLickJesus]

Could objects like this in a near spherical form have any effect on the "Dark Matter" measurements? I know measurements on dark matter involve more than just visual radiation, but perhaps we could get some professional opinions?

Lowell discovers canals on Mars!

[blair1q]

1. Link
2. Submit
3. ???
4. RTFA

Right, and they can barely keep a lid on it now

[sean.peters]

The core of a diamond star is way, way more than 1000% of current supply. It's more like a billion billion percent. Not even de Beers could maintain their cartel in the face of this much supply. So I don't think that's a realistic option.

But all this is premised on the idea that this star is actually made of gem-quality diamond, which it almost certainly isn't. It's highly likely to be contaminated with all sorts of heavier elements, won't have crystallized properly, etc. So pretty much no matter how you slice it, the GP is correct - there's no step 3 here.

Re:Right, and they can barely keep a lid on it now

[WormholeFiend]

It's more like a billion billion percent

A quintillion percent. /fixed for you

Re:Right, and they can barely keep a lid on it now

[NatasRevol]

His post took my post a quintillion percent too literal for me.

Yes, but...

[sean.peters]

... it's important to note that we've long had the capability to manufacture industrial diamonds - in fact, something like five times as many industrial diamonds are manufactured as are mined. So, yeah, not worthless, but only "precious" because their supply is so tightly controlled.

Re:Yes, but...

[TheRaven64]

Not only that, but you can only tell apart natural from gem-quality synthetic diamonds by infrared spectroscopy. To the naked eye, they are completely indistinguishable. The only reason that mined ones sell for more is DeBeers marketing.

So uh... how many carats is that?

[jetole]

I wonder what that is worth.

Re:So uh... how many carats is that?

[ZonkerWilliam]

Not as much as the launch costs to get it out of that gravity well!

Star Registry

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm going to buy this star for my girlfriend from the official star registry!

Galaxy's largest diamond??

[dpilot]

Not very likely - merely the largest diamond within 50 or so light years. How extensive a survey have we made looking for dead-star diamonds? We weren't even looking for this one, just trying to understand and explain its behavior. Likely the truly largest diamond - in the universe, not just the galaxy - will be found approaching Chandrasekhar's Limit.

Re:Galaxy's largest diamond??

[Neil Boekend]

Since large is usually used for size and the electron degeneration causes heavier objects to be smaller, the largest diamond would theoretically be somewhere close to the size of Jupiter and about 100 jupiter masses (the chandrasekhar limit is around 1500 jupiter masses). A white dwarf at the chandrasekhar limit would be small in comparison (1Mm or smaller instead of 320Mm perhaps).

Re:Galaxy's largest diamond??

[dpilot]

I was thinking more of the original star when mentioning the Chandrasekhar limit. The situation is obviously quite complex, but the main point I was trying to get across is that "largest diamond in the galaxy" is very likely erroneous. We just figured out what that this one exists, and haven't really been looking.

Wow, old news

[Vegeta99]

So old, I heard it in a stand-up comedy show first!

You insensitive clod!

[PPH]

My wife will never look at her engagement ring quite the same way again.

Origin of monoliths

[meteormarc]

Is this where the monoliths come from? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monolith_(Space_Odyssey)

Hexapodia as the key insight?

[The Master Control P]

Heh, perhaps this the OnOff system from Deepness in the Sky...

Re:Hexapodia as the key insight?

[samwichse]

That was exactly my thought. Diamond jumble FTW, Emergents FTL!

Re:That's not how they work

[Patch86]

Also, enforce July as a "no-sex" month so we don't have people being born in April.

Shouldn't be a problem for most of the Slashdot crowd.

So, assuming I went and got it,

[Anonymous Coward]

Where should I drop this thing?

Isn't it a magnitude larger than what is estimated would be required to cause massive global extinction, if it were to impact the earth?

Makes me glad my wife chose rare colored stones, instead of soon-to-be-worthless diamond.

'tis recent News actually. All over /new/ 4chan.

[Anonymous Coward]

It's like they are trying to create a meme about this planet-sized diamond, that I wouldn't be surprised if they were the ones that Submit this story to Slashdot and even the ones bumping that 6yo story on BBC like a PedoBear bumping a stroller away from it's mother.

In The Future...

[Zixaphir]

People will think that Lucy was the first human being who originally was a goddess who fell from the sky and had her star removed from the sky as a result of some sin. Suddenly, everything you know about mythology becomes a lot more made up by scientists, doesn't it?

Does anyone remember..

[sea4ever]

2010, a space odyssey? Wasn't part of the story about a giant diamond from the star Lucifer that landed on Europa..? This is unrelated but wow, who knew stars actually had diamonds in them!

I CALL DIBS!

[BatGnat]

I CALL DIBS!

completely different

[phlegmofdiscontent]

Besides being old, the article is inaccurate. What we consider a diamond consists of a lattice of carbon atoms linked by covalent bonds. This, quite simply, would not support itself against its own gravity. White dwarfs are made up of electron degenerate matter, supported by the Pauli exclusion principle. Electrons can only withstand being compressed to a certain point under this principle and that pressure offsets the inward pressure due to gravity. Covalent bonds as in a diamond would break down long before that. Yes, the star may be 100% carbon, but that doesn't make it a diamond. It's akin to saying graphite is the same as diamond since they're both 100% carbon. A carbon white dwarf is a completely different state of matter than a diamond.

Gucci Mane says...

[pckl300]

Burr!

Re:That's not how they work

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually it will turn out that they're the ones behind the apparent reverse chronological causation at the LHC. Because if we unlock the secrets of the Higgs boson and fantastic new physics that enables us to travel to the stars... well. That's the end of that.

how far is it again?

[Anonymous Coward]

how far is it again?

Preposterous Jermaine!

[Anonymous Coward]

It'd be better if it was made of coal.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YSeFsX2waus

Re:That's not how they work

[Jedi Alec]

Screw you, I was born in july and I demand my special "good morning" for my birthday.

Then again, I've heard there's ways of making relatively sure that sex does not lead to babies...

4km wide Diamond Star

[CompMD]

That's the biggest DA-40 I've ever heard of!