Astronomers spy 10 billion trillion trillion-carat diamond

“If anyone’s ever promised you the sun, the moon and the stars, tell ’em you’ll settle for BPM 37093.


The heart of that burned-out star with the no-nonsense name is a sparkling diamond that weighs a staggering 10 billion trillion trillion carats. That’s one followed by 34 zeros.


The hunk of celestial bling is an estimated 2,500 miles across, said Travis Metcalfe, of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.


‘You would need a jeweler’s loupe the size of the sun to grade this diamond,’ said Metcalfe, who led the team that discovered the gem.


The diamond is a massive chunk of crystallized carbon that lies about 300 trillion miles from Earth, in the constellation Centaurus.” —Sacramento Bee