Well, those last few blog posts about planet Earth and its strange creatures were pretty cool, but I think it’s time for a few “out-of-these-world” posts, don’t you? Ready for a little deep space exploration? “Make it so,” you say? Okay then…on today’s post, we’re off to do a little galactic mining! What’s that you ask? Well, if you are a James Bond fan, you already know that diamonds are forever, but could they possibly be from space too? That’s what we’re going to find out!

Our first stop on today’s galaxy-wide treasure hunt is a collapsed star known as a “white dwarf.” A white dwarf is the remains of a small to medium sized star once it has reached the end of its lifespan. The heat created by a star in a process called fusion has slowed down at this stage. This heat helped keep the massive star from collapsing in on itself under the force of gravity. As the star cools, it first forms a red, gaseous ball known as a red giant. The red giant then collapses and forms a super-dense white dwarf. About 97% of all the stars in our galaxy will end up as white dwarfs one day. (For the fate of larger stars, do an Internet search on “black holes.”) A white dwarf is made up mainly of carbon and oxygen. It is super hot when it is formed, and the carbon and oxygen are compressed under great heat and pressure. If you’ve already guessed that this is the recipe for making diamonds, you’ve hit pay dirt! White dwarfs are the giant diamond mines of the galaxy. In fact, astronomers (scientists that study outer space) found one white dwarf that had a core made of pure diamond. It was 4000 km in diameter. Ka-ching!!

So far, so good. The only problem is that the nearest white dwarf is 8.6 light years away! Can we find any space diamonds closer to home? Tune into tomorrow’s blog post to find out!