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 ...
Happy Friday!
Good luck at your meeting, ArGee!!
Yes, Friday is here. YAY!
Best wishes for your days! Mine will include driving adventures, painting, and probably a trip to Petsmart for crickets. Maybe we’ll go to the Petsmart in Monroe that’s by the used book store ...
Thank you. I passed with flying colors.
That’s not as big as it sounds. Everyone is flying colors right now.
Stupid pride month.
Well, my day started with a thud. I was in the middle of listening to an uplifting talk while doing a jigsaw, and everything stopped. Microslop has been trying to get me to “Update” the laptop, and I’ve been resisting, as usual. They decided to get ugly and shut everything down while they went ahead with their update and “cleaning up” whatever that is. UNNGH!
I figure I’ve lost 45 minutes and that’s about how long it usually takes to write to Charlie. Which hasn’t been done yet.
I’m going to go out and get the water out of the truck, and while I’m doing that, I’m going to reboot this thing. When I get back, I’ll write to Charlie and then get it over to the mail drop.
Blarg and dreck. Microsoft will Get Theirs someday.
I packed my Linux For Dummies (somewhere) but as soon as it’s unpacked, and I learn enough to navigate the basics, I’ll be switching over. I have a niece who has worked for Bill Gates forever, but the only OS they made that I liked was Win 7, and they’re not supporting it any more.
Now, I need to write to Charlie.
Good for you!
I wanna know when we’re going to have White Pride Month?
Prolly as soon as Texas declares its independence.
One of the reasons I spent the rather large amount of money on a Macbook (compared to a Windoze laptop) was with Win-tin-tin they announced they would no longer allow some updates to be optional.
Sorry, my computer. I own it, I don’t lease it. I’ll decide when to upgrade it.
See? I never understood why they think we need to upgrade if we’re not doing critical work.
I’d love to have a Mac, but golly...
I’ll do the next best thing and go to Linux.
They’re using the same logic as the “wear a mask even if you’re not sick” people. Because you might accept some malware that would use your PC to spread through the Interwebs.
Even though others who care will have upgraded.
Microsoft - where do we think you ought to go today?
Big Brother.
They probably invent the malware and insert it with their mandatory “upgrades.”
They already have my info, so what more do they want?
Vlad drove us to Petsmart and back. Very exciting. (Just kidding.)
Yeah...I got that.
Well, I’m hoping it wasn’t exciting for anyone but Vlad. Unless you went to the one by the used book store... ;o]
I’m afraid I’ll have to take the BB SUV in for an oil change on pay day. It’s been a year, and I think there is a small leak. So I’ll pick up the oil and some Engine Restore 4 and have Jiffy Lube take care of it for me.
I don’t want to but I think it’s a good idea.
Parallels by itself can't even recognize the optical drive.
Linux time.
!
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