SKIRMISHER

Astronomers recently spotted the largest diamond ever discovered nicknamed “Lucy” — a 10 billion trillion trillion carat beauty. There’s only one tiny catch: it’s floating in space 50 light years away, in the Constellation Centaurus to be more or less exact.

Scientists believe that the diamond is the heart of an extinct star that used to shine like the Sun. Astronomers have already dubbed the space diamond as Lucy in a tribute to the Beatles song ‘Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds.’

“You would need a jeweler’s loupe the size of the Sun to grade this diamond!” says astronomer Travis Metcalfe (Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics), who leads a team of researchers that discovered the giant gem.

The cosmic stone completely outclasses all diamonds that have ever been found on Earth. The largest diamond weighing 546 carats was found in South African Republic. The diamond, The Star of Africa, resides in the Crown Jewels of England. The Star of Africa was cut from the largest diamond ever found on Earth, a 3,100-carat gem.

Lucy, also known as BPM 37093, is actually a crystallized white dwarf. A white dwarf is the hot core of a star, left over after 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.

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