For the woman who has everything!

[zenith-nadir]

Astronomers spy 10 billion trillion trillion-carat diamond

LOS ANGELES (AP) - If anyone's ever promised you the sun, the moon and the stars, tell 'em you'll settle for BPM 37093.

The heart of that burned-out star with the no-nonsense name is a sparkling diamond that weighs a staggering 10 billion trillion trillion carats. That's one followed by 34 zeros.

The hunk of celestial 'bling' is an estimated 2,500 miles across, said Travis Metcalfe, of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.

The diamond is a massive chunk of crystallized carbon that lies about 300 trillion miles from Earth, in the constellation Centaurus.

The galaxy's largest diamond is formally known as a white dwarf, or the hot core of a dead sun.

Wild huh?

 

[NoZed Avenger]

Dibs!


Hah. First claim.

 

[Earthborn]

I took the liberty of translating this for people who use rational systems of measurement and counting:

The heart of that burned-out star with the no-nonsense name is a sparkling diamond that weighs a staggering 10 thousand quintillion. (=10 milliard billion billion) carat. That's 2 quintillion kilogram (2 thousand quadrillion metric ton).

The hunk of celestial 'bling' is an estimated 4000 kilometers across, said Travis Metcalfe, of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.

The diamond is a massive chunk of crystallized carbon that lies about
480 billion kilometers (= 480 petameter = 148 parsec = 4540 lightyears) from Earth, in the constellation Centaurus.

And the article should have included: "Astronomers have not yet been able to see whether it has a DeBeers ingraving, and thus could not authenticate it as a 'real' natural diamond."

 

[wollery]

The diamond is a massive chunk of crystallized carbon that lies about 480 billion kilometers (= 480 petameter = 148 parsec = 4540 lightyears) from Earth, in the constellation Centaurus.

That should be 15 parsecs and 50 light years.