Does anyone knows what “black diamond” is?
Good luck in finding one! Black, or carbonado, diamonds, came from outer space, geologists have discovered. (Credit: Florida International University) If indeed “a diamond is forever,” the most primitive origins of Earth’s so-called black diamonds were in deep, universal time, geologists have discovered. Black diamonds came from none other than interstellar space. In a paper published online on December 20, 2006, in the journal Astrophysical Journal Letters, scientists Jozsef Garai and Stephen Haggerty of Florida International University, along with Case Western Reserve University researchers Sandeep Rekhi and Mark Chance, claim an extraterrestrial origin for the unique black diamonds, also called carbonado diamonds. Infrared synchrotron radiation at Brookhaven National Laboratory was used to discover the diamonds’ source. “Trace elements critical to an ‘ET’ origin are nitrogen and hydrogen,” said Haggerty. The presence of hydrogen in the carbonado diamonds indicates an origin in a hyd