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Photos The Glow
"It's really not that rare," Magaña told Discovery News, of the Hope Diamond's glow. Nor is the Hope Diamond the best at the glow-in-the-dark trick, she said, "It's not the longest lasting or the most intense." Other blue diamonds glow red, she said, and some glow much longer -- up to 28 seconds in one case, compared to the Hope Diamond's 8.2-second glow. That said, there's no denying that the size of the Hope Diamond makes the natural special effect more impressive. "Because it's so large it looks like a fiery coal in your hand," said Magaña. What may be more important, however, is that the unique mix of colors given off by different individual diamonds, combined with each diamond's individual rate of fading, provide a new way to fingerprint any natural blue diamond, explained Magaña, who recently moved to the Gemological Institute of America. That means some long-standing questions about whether certain smaller stones were really cut from larger stones can be sorted out once and for all. They all should share the same phosphorescent signature.
Larry O'Hanlon's blog: Earth Impacts |
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