Astronomers Identify White Dwarf Star That's Crystallizing Into a Diamond

An international team of astronomers has discovered a white dwarf star that's in the early stages of crystallizing into a cosmic diamond.

A white dwarf star is the compressed dying remnant of a star much like our Sun. But, once a star uses up its fuel, it shrinks in on itself and starts to cool off. Since it’s made mostly of carbon, the crystallization of the super-dense material produces a diamond.

The team led by Alexander Venner of the University of Southern Queensland in Australia identified a white dwarf star dubbed HD 190412 C in a quadruple star system called HD 190412. Although it's 104 light-years away, the researchers were able to peg the star's temperature at about 11,420 degrees Fahrenheit (6,300 degrees Celsius).

That seems blazing hot, but it's cool for a star.

According to the researchers, the temperature-mass profile of HD 190412 C suggests that the core of the star is starting to transform into a dense "cosmic diamond" made up of crystallized carbon and oxygen. Their findings are detailed in a paper accepted for publication in the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.

Before we too excited about the prospect of a mining mission to a distant star, we need to wrap our heads around just how far the white dwarf is from Earth and how long it will take the crystallization process to complete.

The 104 light-year distance from Earth to white dwarf HD 190412 C is equivalent to 610 trillion miles — or about 95,000 round-trips from Earth to Pluto.

What's more, the researchers did the math and determined that the time for a white dwarf star to transition into a stone-cold diamond would be about a "quadrillion" years (that's a million billion years).

This is not the first time astronomers have speculated about a star made of diamonds.

Back in 2004, researchers at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics identified a white dwarf star 50 light-years away in the constellation Centaurus. The astronomers playfully promoted the star as the galaxy's largest diamond. They even calculated its weight in jewelry-industry terminology, at 10 billion trillion trillion carats.

The astronomers called the white dwarf “Lucy” as a nod to the Beatles’ classic song, “Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds.” Officially, the dwarf star is known as “BPM 37093.”

The study of white dwarf stars is extraordinarily challenging because they are extremely difficult to see. Lucy, for example, shines today with only 1/2000th of our Sun's visual brightness.

Lacking visual clues, astronomers have relied on other methods to pinpoint a white dwarf in space. Lucy happens to do an “orbital tango” with a pulsar, or fast-spinning neutron star.

HD 190412 C shares a gravitational bond with its three sister stars in a quadruple star system. Because the other stars in the system have not degraded to white dwarf status, the researchers were able to study them to determine the likely composition of the white dwarf's core.

In the future, white dwarf star hunters will be utilizing the data derived from the European Space Agency's Gaia project, which is surveying nearly two billion cosmic objects to create the most precise three-dimensional map of our galaxy. White dwarf stars may be hard to see, but Gaia has the ability to measure the positions of objects are extremely faint — 400,000 times fainter than can be seen with the naked eye.

Credit: Illustration by Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics / Travis Metcalfe, Christine Pulliam, Ruth Bazinet.

NBA's New-Look Larry O'Brien Trophy Is Twice as Heavy as Its Predecessor

If it seemed like Denver Nuggets owner Stan Kroenke was struggling to keep the Larry O’Brien Trophy aloft during Monday night's post-game awards presentation to the newly crowned NBA champions, there's good reason.

The 24-karat-gold-vermeil-over-silver trophy weighs as much as a three-year-old child.

In 2022, artist Victor Solomon and Tiffany & Co reimagined the trophy, giving it a forward-leaning motif that symbolizes the league "looking ahead to its future." But while the trophy is just slightly taller than its predecessor (25.5 inches vs 24.5 inches), its weight has nearly doubled, from 15.5 to 30 pounds. (By comparison, the mammoth NHL Stanley Cup stands 35 inches tall and weighs 34.5 pounds).

The new design also features a stylish detail, where the 24-karat gold vermeil has been masked to reveal the underlying sterling silver along the "ribs" of the ball and the rope details of the net.

In addition, the disc-shaped base now has two levels instead of one. The top disc lists the first 75 NBA champions. And starting in 2022 and going forward, the name of the NBA champion team will been etched on the bottom disc. Designer Solomon also added a nearly hidden element — the underside of the trophy features the new NBA Finals logo.

Solomon told The Robb Report in 2022 that his favorite feature of the new Larry O’Brien Trophy is the two-part cylindrical base that honors the past while welcoming the future.

“On the surface of the top layer, we’ve etched all previous championship-winning teams and corresponding years, and the second layer has open real estate to etch the next 25 champions — designed to take us up to the 100th anniversary of the league,” he said.

Tiffany reported that the artisans at its hollowware workshop in Cumberland, RI, require more than 65 hours over six months to complete a single NBA championship trophy. Gold and silversmithing techniques, such as engraving, casting and etching are required to complete each piece.

Trophies are permanently possessed by the championship team and generally displayed in the team's arena.

Along with the reimagined Larry O’Brien Trophy, which honors the accomplishments of the NBA’s third commissioner, the league revealed five other trophy designs, which are annually presented to the NBA Finals MVP, the two conference champions, as well as the Eastern and Western Conference MVPs.

The NBA’s relationship with Tiffany & Co. spans 46 years, with the luxury house having designed and manufactured the Larry O’Brien Trophy since 1977, the league’s conference championship trophies since 2001 and the Bill Russell Trophy (NBA Finals MVP) since 2005.

Credits: Screen grab of Stan Kroenke lifting the trophy via Youtube.com/NBA. Photo of trophy grouping courtesy of NBA.

Birthstone Feature: Why Color-Change Alexandrite Was Nearly Called Diaphanite

Back in the early 1830s, a renowned Finnish mineralogist named Nils Gustaf Nordenskiöld was perplexed by a mineral sample he had received from Count Lev Alekseevich Perovskii, a Russian nobleman and fellow mineralogist.

Sourced in Russia's Ural Mountains, the curious green gem seemed to be an emerald, but something was not right. Emeralds have a hardness of 7.5 to 8.0 on the Mohs scale, and this Russian gem was rating an 8.5.

Later in the evening, he inspected the same stone under candlelight and was surprised to see that the gem's color had transitioned from a teal green to a raspberry-red.

The mystery was solved. Nordenskiöld (1792-1865) had stumbled upon a brand new color-change variety of chrysoberyl that was an emerald by day and a ruby by night. But now it needed a name...

The Finn recommended “diaphanite” — from the Greek "di," meaning two, and "aphanes," meaning unseen, or "phan," meaning to appear or show.

But Nordenskiöld's suggestion would soon be overruled by Count Perovskii (1792-1856), who sought favor with the Russian Imperial Family.

In 1834, the color-change gem with the working title of "diaphanite" would take the official name of "alexandrite" in honor of the 16th birthday of Alexander II, the future Russian tsar.

Today, alexandrite is prized for its unique characteristics, beauty and rarity. It is also one of the official birthstones for the month of June, alongside pearl and moonstone.

The color-change gem wasn’t included on the original modern birthstone list, which was published in 1912 by the American National Retail Jewelers Association, now known as Jewelers of America. Alexandrite, along with citrine, tourmaline and zircon, were added in 1952. The list remained untouched until 2002, when tanzanite became an official birthstone for December. In 2016, spinel joined peridot as a birthstone for August.

The color-changing property of alexandrite that allows it to exhibit a raspberry-red color under incandescent light and a teal green color when illuminated by daylight has been attributed to the presence of chromium in the gem’s chemical makeup. The chromium allows the gem to absorb light in the yellow and blue parts of the spectrum.

In addition to Russia, alexandrite has been sourced in Brazil, Sri Lanka, Tanzania, Madagascar, Zimbabwe, India and Myanmar.

Credits: Nils Gustaf Nordenskiöld image by Nils Gustaf Nordenskiöld, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons. Alexandrite images by User: at en.wikipedia, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

Symbol of Hope: Utah Couple Finds 'Miracle Ring' Amidst Ashes of Stolen Trailer

About two weeks ago, a young couple established a GoFundMe page in a desperate attempt to piece their lives back together after the truck and trailer carrying all their belongings were stolen from a hotel parking lot near Denver.

Only a few days earlier, Matthew and Lindsey Fuller, along with their 18-month-old toddler, had opened a new chapter in the lives. The couple made the bold decision to move from Utah to Kansas to pursue some new opportunities.

But, the excitement of a new beginning in Wichita turned into a heart-wrenching nightmare when a Denver-area fire investigator told them that their stolen trailer had been located, but was reduced to ashes. The investigator had been aware of the couple's plight via local reporting and social media.

"Finding out that it had all been burned. That was hard," Lindsey told Salt Lake City NBC affiliate KSL-TV.

But despite the horrific news, Lindsey still held onto a glimmer of hope.

"Maybe my rings hadn't melted," she said. "Maybe some of the books didn't get burned."

When the couple arrived at the impound station, they saw their trailer burned beyond recognition. A pile of charred rubble.

"Just ash, basically," Matthew said.

Undaunted, the couple dove into the mess to see what they could salvage.

Within four minutes, Lindsey's engagement ring emerged from the ashes, a little scorched, but otherwise intact.

"We had been praying we would find it, and finding it within four minutes of getting there, it just felt like a miracle," Lindsey said. "There really aren't words for the relief we felt finding that."

The Fullers call it the "miracle ring" because this was not the first time the ring, or its valuable center stone, had been lost. Previously, the oval-shaped diamond had fallen out at a beach, but was recovered.

"We thought even if we find nothing else, this ring is so precious to us," Lindsey added.

Despite the tragedy, the ring symbolizes the perseverance that will carry this young family into the future.

"We're going to try to keep [it] by our side as long as we live," Matthew said. "Although we lost everything, we have the thing that really started our relationship still with us."

The family's recovery efforts got off to a great start. A GoFundMe goal of $30,000 already has been surpassed by nearly $3,000. The Fullers told KSL-TV that they are extremely grateful to friends, neighbors and complete strangers who have helped them in their moment of total loss.

You can see KSL-TV's full report here.

Credits: Screen grabs via www.ksl.com.