We always knew that diamonds come from deep within the earth. The extreme heat and pressure from the earth’s mantle generate a type of modified graphite called “crystalline carbon”. This molecular composition forms a hexagonal sheet pattern into a triangular shape, resulting in a diamond. 

However,  in some ancient cultures, like in ancient Greece, people thought diamonds were tears from the Gods that came from the skies.

The Beatles even wrote a beautiful song in 1967 called Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds which made people dream that stars could be diamonds, shining bright in the sky.

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Could a Diamond Engagement Ring Come From a Star?

The Beatles and the ancient Greeks may not have been that far off. About ten years ago, researchers at the Harvard-Smithsonian Centre for Astrophysics made the most incredible, breath-taking discovery. The scientists found an old star whose carbon heart had compressed and crystallised to form a cosmic diamond.The star’s scientific name is BPM 37093, but the astronomers actually named the star « Lucy » after the Beatles song.

Lucy lays 50 light years from Earth in the constellation called Centaurus. The star is 2.500 miles wide and weighs 5 million trillion pounds. In carats that would mean 10 billion trillion trillion carats! It would literally take a loupe the size of the sun to be able to grade this diamond. Wouldn’t that be something for your engagement ring?

But What Exactly Is Lucy?

This gigantic diamond is a crystallised white dwarf, the hot carbon core that remains once the star has used up its nuclear fuel and died. This core is mainly made of carbon and coated with a thin layer of hydrogen and helium gases.

For over 40 years, scientists had thought that the cores of stars crystallised when they died, but they had never obtained direct evidence of this process until they discovered Lucy.

Interested in having a piece of this star as your engagement ring? Well, they say that given the size of the diamond, even if you gathered all the money in the world, you still couldn’t afford it!

But it does make us dream a little and wonder about the feasibility of collecting some of it and create a unique and stunning star engagement ring.

In the meantime, at BAUNAT we have a gorgeous selection ofengagement rings to make your wishes come true. Whether you are looking for a classic solitaire engagement ring or a more sophisticated design, we have a wide catalogue online where you can view all of our collections.
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