Article

2004-02-25

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Posted by Steve from Relto 2004-02-25 11:10:46 AM|| || Front Page|| [3 views since 2007-05-07] Top

#1 Think of the Death Ray you could build with a 10 billion trillion carat diamond!

Posted by Steve 2004-2-25 11:25:59 AM|| 2004-2-25 11:25:59 AM|| Front Page Top

#2 Don't give the Jews any ideas!

Posted by Yasser Arafat 2004-2-25 11:49:52 AM|| 2004-2-25 11:49:52 AM|| Front Page Top

#3 Here it comes, the claim that the mouse-people have WMDs and al-Qaeda ties. They'll fight a war for diamonds and finish making America a dictatorsjip and I'll never get my bong back.

Posted by Halfempty 2004-2-25 11:55:18 AM|| 2004-2-25 11:55:18 AM|| Front Page Top

#4 It's Bush's fault. He knew all along that that star was there and could bring us incredible wealth and rescue us from our spending ways...But noooooooo he has to do something stupid like defend the USA and waste all that valuable time.
Go Dubya.

Posted by dataman1 2004-2-25 12:19:30 PM|| 2004-2-25 12:19:30 PM|| Front Page Top

#5 By the way, there are billions of tons of booze in the Great Nebula in Orion. So we can keep our diamond miners all liquered up. Space is sounding more like the roaring twenties than Star Trek.

Posted by David 2004-2-25 12:37:15 PM|| 2004-2-25 12:37:15 PM|| Front Page Top

#6 Smoove B promises to put that diamond on a ring for the girl he just screwed around on. If she does not find it suitable, he will search the cosmos for the burned-out star diamond which pleases her.

There will also be an assortment of dark chocolates. Aw girl.

Posted by BH 2004-2-25 1:26:07 PM|| 2004-2-25 1:26:07 PM|| Front Page Top

#7 I'd like to see if they can find one of these rocks in a binary system with an active and bright partner.... might be something to see. Come to think of it a diamond lens might explain a few of the weirder variable stars.

Posted by Shipman 2004-2-25 2:11:46 PM|| 2004-2-25 2:11:46 PM|| Front Page Top

#8 I expect that Debeers will be working out their own space program now.

Posted by eLarson 2004-2-25 2:20:12 PM|| 2004-2-25 2:20:12 PM|| Front Page Top

#9 Doesn't this defeat the purpose of Diamonds? Diamonds are valuable because they are rare, but if we have a Diamond bigger than the planet, won't dirt be more valuable? Canada would become richer than us!

On the bright side, we won't have to wait 1,000 years before making a Death Star.

Posted by Charles 2004-2-25 3:13:58 PM|| 2004-2-25 3:13:58 PM|| Front Page Top

#10 I'm thinking that's what Debeers' space program would be, actually.

"Fire!"

Posted by eLarson 2004-2-25 3:33:36 PM|| 2004-2-25 3:33:36 PM|| Front Page Top

#11 Hmmmmmmm... I noticed the article didn't give the gravity of that little gem. I'd suspect it's somewhere around 82 to 125 times that of Earth. If you weighed 200 pounds, you'd weigh a ton at 10 times the force of gravity - consider what you'd weigh at 100 times! I doubt DeBeers has to worry about anybody mining that rock any time soon.

Posted by Old Patriot 2004-2-25 3:50:12 PM|| [http://users.codenet.net/mweather/default.htm] 2004-2-25 3:50:12 PM|| Front Page Top

#12 "I didn't forget your birthday at all, honey. There's your diamond up there. The largest one there is. Look, you can see it through this telescope. And you never have to worry about anyone stealing it."

Posted by Christopher Johnson 2004-2-25 4:13:53 PM|| [http://mcj.bloghorn.com/] 2004-2-25 4:13:53 PM|| Front Page Top

#13 Why can't they find an oil planet for chainney to colonise?

Posted by Napoleon VII 2004-2-25 4:31:23 PM|| 2004-2-25 4:31:23 PM|| Front Page Top

#14 So Lucy really was in the sky with diamonds.

Posted by B 2004-2-25 6:38:18 PM|| 2004-2-25 6:38:18 PM|| Front Page Top

#15 B- At least until she died of intoxication from the Great Nebula's lovely donation of booze. (Roar, twenties. Roar!)

Posted by Miss Gunn 2004-2-25 6:57:51 PM|| 2004-2-25 6:57:51 PM|| Front Page Top

#16 Apparently it may not be very pure, it could be about 50% O, 50% C, according to these spoilsports. NS claims the solid core's mass is about 90% the mas of the Sun (0.9*1.989E30kg) & aunty beeb claim the core's diameter may be ~ 2000 km, IF they're right (& any info from the beeb's science & tech pages need to be taken with large doses on NaCl then it's gravity'll be about 3 million times that on Earth's surface. As has been said already, DeBeers don't need to worry yet.

Posted by Dave 2004-2-25 7:04:33 PM|| 2004-2-25 7:04:33 PM|| Front Page Top

#17 Wonder if we'll see some Martian trying to shove this thing up his ass to smuggle it out of the solar system?

Posted by tu3031 2004-2-25 9:18:59 PM|| 2004-2-25 9:18:59 PM|| Front Page Top

#18 Charles> Diamond is the hardest material known, I believe. That's a use that gives value to diamond besides their rarity.

In Arthur Clarke's "Space Odyssey: 2010", Jupiter is turned into a sun, and Jupiter's diamond core explodes outwards, IIRC. The pieces are then taken by humans and used to construct a space elevator, which would indeed required the hardest material known to man.

Current ideas for such space elevators try to find a substitute, like nanotubes: More Info here

Posted by Aris Katsaris 2004-2-25 9:39:35 PM|| 2004-2-25 9:39:35 PM|| Front Page Top

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