Diamonds in the Sky | NOVA Online
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PBS Learning Media
Diamonds in the Sky | NOVA Online
Glittering stars in the night sky aside, scientists have long known that some diamonds hail from the heavens. In 1981, for example, when Smithsonian researchers tried to cut through a large iron meteorite that had crash-landed in the Allen Hills of Antarctica, the sawteeth on their blade got all chewed up. Subsequent X-rays showed that the stone was riddled with microscopic diamonds, the hardest substance known. The scientists theorized that the meteorite's diamonds were born during a cataclysmic collision out in the asteroid belt. Find out more in this article from NOVA Online.