DailyDirt: That Lucy In The Sky... Is A Diamond

Diamonds are usually considered expensive rare gems, but they're also just an allotrope of carbon that could be a useful semiconductor material someday. Giant diamonds floating in space could be relatively common, but there's no practical way to go space mining for them. Diamonds aren't easy to make, but some folks are getting better at it.

• There's a star designated BPM 37093 but also known as Lucy. It's a crystallized white dwarf with a diamond at its center about 4,000 km across. In 7 billion years or so, this will also be the fate of our own Sun. [url]
• A super-Earth-sized planet circling 55 Cancri about 40 light years away has been called the "diamond planet" as it was the first known planet thought to be made up largely of diamond. Further study shows that it might not contain as much diamond as once thought, but it's not the only planet that has a lot of diamonds. [url]
• Diamonds might not be as rare in the near future if researchers can make them in a lab... out of peanut butter. Okay, peanut butter isn't the best starting material to make synthetic diamonds, but almost any source of carbon will do. [url]

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