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 ...
Besides, if you are chasing someone at night... you need the headlights.
Er...
Unless you are wearing Gen3 night vision.
You’re right, of course!
:o])
Me with my giant nerd-head brain thingie. Still good for something other than keeping my hat off my shoulders. :-)
Sounds like Face may be back on the roads soon. This makes me happy.
Makes ‘Face VERY happy, because now, she won’t be “luggage” any more! My son found the car, I paid for it, had it towed to his front yard, he tells me what parts to buy, I get them and he puts them in. Sweet deal!
But it’s slow because he has a handyman business and doesn’t have much time to work on it. Still, not too much needs to be done to it so it WILL get done, and then I can be back to doing what I like to do: Driving Ms ‘Face!
And thanks!
Neither library was open, but we dropped off some books in the lobby at Matthews. Then we took the van to the mechanic to see if they can fix the side door. It went from “can’t open it from the outside” to “can’t open it at all.”
People is such jerks.
Can’t open or won’t open???
Stubborn things, those vans.
I was prepared to make them reach from the front to get the side door open as long as necessary, but since we can’t get it open at all, that could be dangerous.
Well drat. What a revoltin’ development that is!
I hope it’s just a problem with the lock mechanism and that they don’t have to replace the entire door.
Yep. And I’m not the slightest bit happy about it. I hate calling the Fraud line. It’s pretty intrusive. At least no money changed hands in either case, but still... Closing the account was the best I could do.
Yes, it’s annoying. The door has a plastic panel on the inside, so I hope they can just remove that, replace the latch, and stick the door back on. Famous last words ...
Let’s hope they can take care of it without a lot of fuss and bother.
They may not have to remove the door, just the door panel. We can always hope!
Good morning. Happy Humph Day!
The dog had a seizure this morning. She beat her previous record between seizures by 1 day. We were outside when it started. Fortunately, it was a balmy 30f, not down in the teens.
All is sorted now, except she needs to be combed after her bath.
I’m sorry to hear that. Poor dog! I’m not sure I would recognize a seizure if I saw one.
It is very warm here.
What a sweet floof! It’s about the same color as the fog outside...
Good morning.
Another day and I have no idea what I’ll be doing. Maybe I’ll just try to behave myself. Ha-ha.
Good morning, ArGee. I’m so sorry about Dog. Will the vet be giving her any meds to stop the seizing? It seems like such an awful thing to have a dog go through this, even if it’s a month or more apart. Poor thing. Though she may not know what a seizure is, I’m sure its disorienting and confusing for her.
Here’s hoping for better days for all of you.
We’ve got fog again this morning.
Maybe I’ll hang my kitchen clock this morning. James and Abbie gave me one but it doesn’t match much of anything so it will go in here somewhere and I’ll pretend it fits. After the family paintings are up, of course.
So now, I’ll go see how the shower is shaping up. I’m having a very hard time getting used to the hot water running out before I’ve spent enough time trying to loosen up the joints. The stupid thing. There seems to be something wrong with the valve because if I turn it to lessen the hot water, it lessens the flow as well, and it shouldn’t do that.
Anyway, I’m off.
!
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