Thursday, April 14, 2005
Bling, Bling Star
There are many spectacular sights in the universe, but a giant diamond suspended in the southern skies outshines them all. The cosmic gem known as BPM 37093 is actually a white dwarf. Such stars are the hot cores of stars like our sun left over after they use up their nuclear fuel and die. This particular white dwarf is made mostly of crystalized carbon, i.e. diamond, draped with a thin gasseous veil of hydrogen and helium.
The diamond star is located in the constellation Centaurus just short 50 light years away. It is 2,500 miles across and weighs 5 million trillion trillion pounds, which translates to approximately 10 billion trillion trillion carats.
"It's the mother of all diamonds!" said astronomer Travis Metcalfe from Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics who led the team that made the discovery. "Some people refer to it as 'Lucy' in a tribute to the Beatles song 'Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds.'"
Team member Michael Montgomery from the Univresity of Cambridge said that "the hunt for the crystal core of this white dwarf has been like the search for the Lost Dutchman's Mine. It was thought to exist for decades, but only now has it been located."The team also said that the star rings like a "gigantic gong", undergoing constant pulsations.
Metcalfe said the team made the discovery by "measuring those pulsations, we were able to study the hidden interior of the white dwarf, just like seismograph measurements of earthquakes allow geologists to study the interior of the Earth. We figured out that the carbon interior of this white dwarf has solidified to form the galaxy's largest diamond."
The scientists wrote that our Sun will become a white dwarf when it dies 5 billion years from now. Some two billion years after that, the Sun's ember core will crystallize as well, leaving a giant diamond in the center of our solar system.
Although Lucy has been found a year ago, it's can be best viewed right now if you and your telescope happen to be in the southern hemisphere. The window on Lucy will close in June for another ten months.
The diamond star is located in the constellation Centaurus just short 50 light years away. It is 2,500 miles across and weighs 5 million trillion trillion pounds, which translates to approximately 10 billion trillion trillion carats.
"It's the mother of all diamonds!" said astronomer Travis Metcalfe from Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics who led the team that made the discovery. "Some people refer to it as 'Lucy' in a tribute to the Beatles song 'Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds.'"
Team member Michael Montgomery from the Univresity of Cambridge said that "the hunt for the crystal core of this white dwarf has been like the search for the Lost Dutchman's Mine. It was thought to exist for decades, but only now has it been located."The team also said that the star rings like a "gigantic gong", undergoing constant pulsations.
Metcalfe said the team made the discovery by "measuring those pulsations, we were able to study the hidden interior of the white dwarf, just like seismograph measurements of earthquakes allow geologists to study the interior of the Earth. We figured out that the carbon interior of this white dwarf has solidified to form the galaxy's largest diamond."
The scientists wrote that our Sun will become a white dwarf when it dies 5 billion years from now. Some two billion years after that, the Sun's ember core will crystallize as well, leaving a giant diamond in the center of our solar system.
Although Lucy has been found a year ago, it's can be best viewed right now if you and your telescope happen to be in the southern hemisphere. The window on Lucy will close in June for another ten months.
