Posted on 06/11/2021 11:51:04 AM PDT by Red Badger
At 563 carats, the Star of India is the world’s largest gem-quality blue star sapphire, and is approximately 2 billion years old. (Image credit: D. Finnin/Copyright AMNH)
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What does the legendary Star of India — a 563-carat star sapphire the size of a golf ball — have in common with a 35-million-year-old petrified redwood slab; a massive cluster of sword-like crystals that looks like it came from "Game of Thrones;" and a 5-ton (4.5-metric ton) stone pillar that can "sing?"
You can see all of them, along with 5,000 other amazing stones, in the newly renovated Mignone Hall of Gems and Minerals at the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) in New York City, which is reopening after a four-year closure on Saturday (June 12). There, one-of-a-kind precious gems appear alongside odd-looking rocks — some of which date to billions of years ago — that have been uniquely warped and twisted by extreme temperatures and pressures.
Individually and together, these objects tell a story of the diverse geologic processes that shape minerals on Earth's surface and deep inside our planet, beginning when the world was young and continuing to this day, museum representatives told Live Science.
Related: 13 mysterious and cursed gemstones
The Star of India, which formed about a billion years ago, was discovered in Sri Lanka in the 18th century. It is one of the best-known gems in the world, in part because it was famously and brazenly stolen from AMNH in 1964, along with several more of the museum's prized stones, by a pair of thieves named Jack "Murf the Surf" Murphy and Allan Kuhn, Smithsonian reported in 2014, on the heist's 50th anniversary. (The one-of-a-kind sapphire was recovered and went back on display in 1965).
(Excerpt) Read more at livescience.com ...
That story has a number of iterations in different environments.
The Wall Street Journal has reported on recent driving-death statistics that indicate that more deranged fools are out on the roads these days.
Good Friday morning.
It’s gray and dismal here, and I need to go out in it later on. :o|
Perhaps more people out on the roads are becoming deranged fools. The permission people think they have for being rude and abusive on-line might be translating into real life.
CONGRATULATIONS! “Star of India” Post has been selected by the Guinness Book of World Records for the longest off-topic thread in the history of Free Republic!
I am truly humbled.........😜
Does somebody want to tell him about breaking the internet?
Nah. That’s Nicknamedbob’s job...although JHL can be referred to Bob’s home page.
This thread is now in the hands of the Undead thread, JHL! We take whatever thread we want and mangle it until we find another that suits our purpose.
We couldntadunit without you Red Badger! Thanks again!
;o])
Nah, let’s keep it a secret.
Hanging at the library briefly, but it’s time to resume the James Driving Adventure. We’re going to Publix next.
I’m off to Walgreen’s and then the library, and it’s still ugly out. Warm and moist. I guess I’d better get used to it...
We got some fried chicken at Publix, ate it at a picnic table on their sidewalk, then went to Nothing Bundt Cakes to get the “bundtlets” I ordered for the choir, and now we have arrived at home in one piece.
We ran into some friends at the library, which was an unexpected bonus.
I picked up the prescription, then went to the bank to get quarters for laundry then went to the library and now I’m in a gray lint phase.
I want some fried chicken or a pizza or something else, but it looks like I forgot to buy food again and will have some chicken “salad” on crackers after I have my pills. :o|
Where is my brain? Anybody?
"Ran into" as in "the unpleasant outcome of a driving adventure" or "ran into" as in "met"?
I’m glad you asked that question because I sure didn’t want to!
Jolly jokers. Encountered indoors.
I have my own Driving Adventures on the way to and from Walmart. This week, I decided to take the back way in and it was still mostly dark, but getting light behind me. I rounded a curve only to be met with a large pickup truck with halogen headlights, right in my eyes. I couldn’t see the side of the road, but it was a solid embankment so I wouldn’t have gone over the cliff.
Still, it wasn’t as much fun as it could have been. You know — like, Event Free?
I feel much safer in the van than in a smaller car. There are a lot of big pickups around here, too.
I’ve always liked bigger vehicles but this one was given to me at a time when I was in desperate need, and it’s given me good service for the most part in the almost eight years I’ve had it.
I’ll miss it when I leave, but I won’t complain. It’s fairly high off the ground, actually, but when one of those massive pickup trucks is coming the other way, then yes, I feel a little puny.
And now, it’s time for me to toddle down the hall. Later...
I hope you have a good night!
Why, thank you very much!
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