Diamonds In The Sky
Scientist Charles Bauschilicher and his research team have found a new way to look for “diamonds in the sky.”
It may not be romantic, but diamonds shine especially brightly in the 3.4 to 3.5 micron and 6 to 10 micron infrared ranges, which should make NASA’s spitzer telescope the perfect to see them with.
Though less common and more monopolized on earth, diamonds are surprisingly common in outer space and in the nanometer- size bits consist of 3% of all the carbon found in meteorites.
That means that if meteorite composition is representative of interstellar dust that dust would contain about 10 quadrillion nanodiamonds per gram.