When singer Mariah Carey got engaged to Australian billionaire James Packer her engagement ring made eyes pop. The 35 carat diamond ring has a centre stone surrounded by two tapered smaller stones in a platinum setting. That’s big huh?
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The average engagement ring is just one carat so if you think a “huge rock” would make a favourable impression on your future fiancé, or your wife, then maybe you should figure out a way to go capture a newly-discovered white dwarf star astronomers are calling an Earth-size diamond in space.
This freak star is essentially crystallised carbon, writes Dave Reneke, from Australasian Science magazine. Immense gravitational pressure and heat over countless billions of years have turned this into a huge diamond, a giant floating piece of bling!
Keen to buy? You’d better carry a deep wallet because this 10 billion trillion trillion carat monster has a cost that’s literally, well, astronomical! That’s a one followed by 34 zeros. You’d need a jeweller’s magnifying glass the size of the Sun to grade this gem.
Seriously, how much would this status symbol cost you if you had the means to buy it? Words like a “gadzillion” dollars’ comes to my mind! Sorry but it’s the best I can do! If you need a cool drink at this stage, be my guest!
The next time you stargaze imagine how much real estate there is out there. And that’s not counting the rich mineralogy locked up in the planets and asteroids!
Want to go bigger with a few more “awesomes”? Try the largest star ever found. A giant named Canis Majoris is the largest star in the universe in terms of size. If we could take VY Canis Majoris and put it in our solar system in place of the sun, it would stick out of Saturn’s orbit.
Want another “awesome” moment. A reader asks what happens to a bullet fired on the Moon? The bullet exits the gun at the same speed as it does on the Earth. But as soon as it leaves the gun there’s no air resistance and little gravity. It can maintain its speed longer than the Earth bullet can.
So, assuming your bullet doesn't hit anything and with no air resistance, the bullet will go about 6 times farther on the Moon. Now that’s awesome