For the past forty years, scientists at the Smithsonian Institute have been studying a collapsed star in the Centaurus Constellation.  Once a star dies, it becomes a white dwarf.  A white dwarf originates from a hot core, which is formed when the star consumes its nuclear fuel and shuts down, or “dies.”  Because of the extreme changes in temperature, the carbon core of the star crystallizes into a cubic structure that is famous on Earth — diamond.

The white dwarf being studied by a team at the Smithsonian Institute (lead by Travis Metcalfe) is not only radiant, but it rings like a gigantic gong, pulsating constantly.  Thanks to this pulsation, and recent developments in equipment, Metcalfe and his associates were able to study the interior of the deceased star, just like a seismograph can study the pulsation of the earth to predict earthquakes.  Metcalfe says, “We figured out that the carbon interior of this white dwarf has solidified to form the galaxy’s largest diamond.”

Known to scientists officially as BPM 37093, this massive diamond has been affectionally christened as “Lucy,” a name inspired by the Beetles’ song “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds.”  She is, in fact, the largest diamond in the sky.  Lucy is 2,500 miles across, and weighs in at 5 million trillion trillion pounds.  Translated into carats, Lucy becomes 10 billion trillion trillion carats, or a one followed by 34 zeros.  “You would need a jewelers’s loupe the size of the sun to grade this diamond!” says Metcalfe.  The largest uncut diamond currently found on Earth is the yellow-colored Kimberley Octahedron, which is a measly 616 carats.  The largest diamond ever found (it has since been cut) was the Cullinan, at 3,106 carats.  Again, these pale in comparison to Lucy.

At today’s rates, if Bill Gates and Donald Trump pooled every last penny they had together, they couldn’t afford to buy this diamond.  This is probably a good thing because, due to the laws of supply and demand, if Lucy was ever purchased and cut for retail, the diamond market would plummet and diamonds would become virtually worthless.  On the other hand, no one knows if Lucy is a gem quality diamond, or if she could only be used for industrial purposes.

Lucy is located in the constellation of Centaurus, the mythical half-man, half-horse, which is in the southern sky close to Crux, the Southern Cross.  Centaurus is 50 light-years from earth.  With a light-year being defined as 6 trillion miles, this puts Lucy at roughly 300 trillion miles from Earth.  Astronomically speaking, this is relatively close.  She is made mostly of carbon and is coated with a thin layer of hydrogen and helium gases.

It is predicted that five billion years from now, the Earth’s own Sun will collapse and become a white dwarf star.  Around 2 billion years after that, our sun will share the same fate as Lucy, and become a cosmically massive diamond.