James Allen News Center

Scientists have now discovered a way to find diamonds in space using an infrared telescope.

Diamonds from space are actually quite common, but they are very small. Approximately 25,000 could fit in one grain of sand.

Space diamonds are made of carbon like those on earth, so studying them could assist scientists in discovering how molecules made of carbon develop. Carbon is the building block of life on earth.

Space diamonds form in a very different way than on earth, where they are created through high pressure and temperature. In space they form through very low pressure and temperatures that drop to -400 Fahrenheit.

The place to seek space diamonds are in some meteorites that have fallen to earth. About 3% of the carbon inside is in the form of nanometer-sized diamonds.