Huge Diamond Find

The largest known diamond anywhere has just been found.

Cambridge, MA -- When choosing a Valentine's Day gift for a wife or girlfriend, you can't go wrong with diamonds. If you really want to impress your favorite lady this Valentine's Day, get her the galaxy's largest diamond. But you'd better carry a deep wallet, because this 10 billion trillion trillion carat monster has a cost that's literally astronomical!

"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. "Bill Gates and Donald Trump together couldn't begin to afford it."

When asked to estimate the value of the cosmic jewel, Ronald Winston, CEO of Harry Winston Inc., indicated that such a large diamond probably would depress the value of the market, stating, "Who knows? It may be a self-deflating prophecy because there is so much of it." He added, "It is definitely too big to wear!"

The newly discovered cosmic diamond is a chunk of crystallized carbon 50light-years from the Earth in the constellation Centaurus. (A light-year is the distance light travels in a year, or about 6 trillion miles.) It is2,500 miles across and weighs 5 million trillion trillion pounds, which translates to approximately 10 billion trillion trillion carats, or a one followed by 34 zeros.

"It's the mother of all diamonds!" says Metcalfe. "Some people refer to it as 'Lucy' in a tribute to the Beatles song 'Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds.'"

The diamond star completely outclasses the largest diamond on Earth, the 530-carat Star of Africa which 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.

Well it is a ways away. And before it can be collected we will have to wait for the diamond core to cool down. That could take a while. In the mean time a little closer to home, I expect that once we start exploring the asteroid belt we will find a lot of diamonds and gold. Mining the asteroid belt? I wish I wasn't too old for that sort of thing.

Sun Dims - Bush Responsible

Charles Osgood takes a look at the dimming sun. And it has him worried.

I know you've already got a lot to worry about as it is, but something rather odd is going on --- on the Sun.

The Sun normally undergoes an 11-year cycle of activity --- and last year, it was supposed to have heated up --- and, at its peak, would have a tumultuous boiling atmosphere, spitting out flares and huge chunks of super-hot gas.

Instead, it hit a 50-year low in solar wind pressure, a 55-year low in radio emissions, and a 100-year low in sunspot activity. Right now, the sun is the dimmest it's been in nearly a century.

Did you know that? It's true. Astronomers are baffled by it, but has the press covered the story? Hardly at all. Is the government doing anything about it? No, it's not even in the Obama budget or any Congressional earmarks.

But Obama has only been in office about 3 months (Three Years 8 months 3 weeks and 6 days to go). We know whose fault it really is.

...in Washington, where everything is political, they'll note that it began before President Obama took office --- perhaps "another example of the failed policies of the Bush Administration."

Whew. Now that we know who to blame I think it absolves the current administration of all further responsibility. Thank the Maker.

H/T Watts Up With That

Sun, Sun, Sun, Here It Comes

Click on the picture for an explanation. The big deal is in the lower left.

Cross Posted at Classical Values

NASA Picture of the Day

NASA Picture of the Day.

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