A team of astronomers has identified possibly the coldest, faintest white dwarf star ever detected. This ancient stellar remnant is so cool that its carbon has crystallized, forming -- in effect -- an Earth-size diamond in space.
"It's a really remarkable object," said David Kaplan, a professor at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. "These things should be out there, but because they are so dim they are very hard to find."
Kaplan and his colleagues found this stellar gem using the National Radio Astronomy Observatory's (NRAO) Green Bank Telescope (GBT) and Very Long Baseline Array (VLBA), as well as other observatories.