A group of space scientists have discovered a white dwarf star, HD 190412 C, that appears to be in the beginning stages of crystallizing into a celestial diamond. The white dwarf, located approximately 104 light years away, is made mostly of metallic oxygen and is part of a quadruple system called HD 190412. The researchers have been studying the cooling delay in the star due to the crystallization process to determine how far along it is on its path to becoming a celestial diamond.
Astronomers have discovered a white dwarf star, located just 104 light-years away, that is gradually hardening and crystallizing, turning into a dense, hard, 'cosmic diamond' made up of crystallized carbon and oxygen. The discovery is detailed in a paper accepted into the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. The white dwarf is part of a quadruple system, and its properties suggest that it's undergoing the crystallization process. The system's age is around 7.3 billion years, and the white dwarf's age appears to be around 4.2 billion years, suggesting that the crystallization rate has slowed the cooling rate of the white dwarf by approximately 1 billion years.
