ET Got Blings
Extra Terrestrial Diamonds
Volcanoes; deep beneath the earth’s crust lies relentless, dark caverns, ravaging tides of searing hot magma and suffocating, noxious fumes. Space; above the earth lies endless, wide-open spaces, magnificent constellations of stars and planets and a host of possibilities for man’s explorative nature.
It is hard to believe that these two completely different environments are both capable of rendering one of the most precious jewels known to man, diamonds.
The idea of diamonds from outer-space, or extraterrestrial diamonds was first proposed by astrochemists Saslaw and Gaustad in 1969. The idea was later confirmed in 1989, upon the discovery of diamond particles found within meteorites by Lewis, Anders and Draine.
The reason behind this astonishing act of nature is in theory simple. Diamonds are the only gem-stone known to man to consist entirely of one element, carbon, and like the depths of a volcano the atmosphere of space holds an endless supply of this element. Just because someone farms potatoes does not mean they have potato chips, and likewise with carbon and diamonds.
Generally terrestrial diamonds (diamonds formed on Earth) are formed when carbon, created by the melting of rocks within the earth’s crust are melted. These carbon emissions then are forced by the melting of the crust to move deeper. When the temperature of the crust cools, and other elements such as chemistry and pressure are right, the carbon atoms bond together forming a new rock, a diamond.
There are several theories upon how this process would take place in the outer realms of the solar system. Saslaw and Gaustad theorized that particles in interstellar dust clouds are in fact consistent of diamond grains and that diamonds found within meteorite could have been created long before the existence of life by shockwaves occurring in the early Solar System. Whilst others debate that the diamonds found within meteorites are the product of the carbon atoms reacting to the rapidly-changing conditions of a meteorite entering orbit and its impact with Earth. These are generally referred to as microdiamonds or nanodiamonds.
Many of the meteorites that collide with Earth, and are analysed, contain presolar grains. These grains are clusters of materials that differ so radically from the surrounding meteorite it suggests they have existed since before the solar system. Studies of these presolar grains have revealed the existence of nanodiamonds. This works in favour of Saslaw and Gaustad’s ideas that the diamonds found within meteorites are formed within an interstellar environment during events such as supernovae. Supernovae are the explosion of a star. When a star goes supernova (explodes) it emits extreme luminosity and a burst of radiation before fading over several weeks or months. The explosion of the star drives a shockwave into the surrounding atmosphere and thrusts all of the star’s matter at an enormous velocity (on tenth the speed of light) hurtling into space.
When we take into fact that some White dwarf stars (over 97% of the stars in our galaxy) contain a carbon core we soon see how it would be possible for a diamond to form in space; carbon combined with alterations in temperature, pressure and chemicals.
So far, the largest diamond known to man is actually a extraterrestrial diamond. Named Lucy in honour of The Beatles’ song, Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds, this ten billion trillion trillion carrat stone is located 50 light years away in the Centaurus constellation and is believed to be to be the heart of a dead star by the The Harvard Smithsonian Centre for Astrophysics.
Not all extraterrestrial diamonds can be explained via these convenient (yet exceedingly technical) conventions. The Black Diamond or Caronado found in the Central African Republic and Brazil is still to this day a mystery to geologists and astrophysics alike. This dark grey or black diamond is more porous than other diamonds and is considered controversial in regards to its origins. By 2008 scientific literature has refused to accept any of the afore mentioned methods of crystalisation as a plausible hypotheses for Caronado, as well as dismissing the possibility of radiation-induced diamond formation caused by spontaneous mining of uranium and thorium.
Whilst research into Caronado and other extraterrestrial diamonds continues with the aid of equipment such as the Hubble Telescope and infra-red satellites, we can only sit back and wonder where this will lead, and how much will one pay for a White Dwarf Star crystal ring?