The Galaxy’s Largest Diamond
Just in time for the holidays — try giving this diamond to your sweetie.
According to this Pravda.ru article, astronomers have discovered the largest diamond of ‘em all, with a weight of a whopping ten billion trillion trillion carats. (No, that’s not a typo.)
To tell you the truth, I wasn’t aware of this revelation until a few days ago (thanks to Ia). The article might have been published recently, but a quick research reveals that this news is quite old. An excerpt from a 2004 (yes, 2004!) press release:
The huge cosmic gem (technically known as BPM 37093) is actually a crystallized white dwarf. A white dwarf is the hot core of a star, left overafter the star uses up its nuclear fuel and dies. It is made mostly of carbon and is coated by a thin layer of hydrogen and helium gases.
Well, aside from being remarkable on its own, this gigantic diamond caught my interest because I had been reading up on another diamond-related piece of trivia — diamonds make for a lousy investment!
This article by Edward Jay Epstein tells us that million-dollar diamonds can actually be worth just a few hundred bucks. Not because they’re fake, but because the value of diamonds aren’t ‘fixed’. He cites the case of Central African ‘Emperor’ Bokassa’s $140-turned-$500,000+ diamond:
The value of the Emperor’s diamond, like that of most other diamonds, depends heavily on the perception of the buyer. If it is accepted as a unique gem and a crown jewel, it could be auctioned off for a million dollars. If, on the other hand, it is seen as a piece of industrial boart, it will be sold for $140 and used as grinding powder. It is, as Jolis observed, “a two-tier market.”
Regardless of your spending power, chances are you’ll feel a bit more tentative about buying these precious stones after digesting Epstein’s piece. To describe it as very informative would be an understatement.
