Diamonds in space - Quick facts

Not all diamonds found on our planet have originated on earth. As many of you already know most natural diamonds that have originated on earth formed at high-pressure high-temperature conditions that exist at depths of 140 to 190 kilometers (87 to 120 miles) in the Earth's mantle. Their growth took a very long time, and most diamonds that originate from Earth are 1 billion to 3.3 billion years old, and they were brought close to the Earth surface through deep volcanic eruptions by a magma, which cools into igneous rocks known as kimberlites and lamproites.

In many meteorites found on our planet a very tiny diamonds of extraterrestrial origin were also found. These diamonds are usually called nanodiamonds, and is very likely that they have originally formed in supernovas.

There is also one interesting story about the relatively unknown type of diamond called carbonado that was found in alluvial deposits in the Central African Republic and Brazil. Unlike other diamonds carbonado has natural black or dark gray color, and it is more porous than other diamonds. Many scientists believe that these weird carbonado diamonds may have formed in the intrastellar environment, via an asteroid impact but scientific consensus about the origin of these diamonds still hasn't been reached.

At the end I will add one fascinating fact about extraterrestrial diamonds. In space there are planets, so called "white dwarf stars" that have a diamond core. This was confirmed in Australia in 2004 when white dwarf star known as BPM 37093 was discovered. This white dwarf star is currently the biggest diamond known in universe that weighs 2.27 thousand trillion trillion tons which equals to around 10 billion trillion trillion carats, or a 1 followed by 34 zeros. Now this is what I call a really big diamond.