Lucy in The Sky . . . !

WHO WOULD HAVE THOUGHT A BEATLES SONG could presage a scientific discovery? Astronomers report in the current Science that they have just found a wealth of diamonds floating inside the dense clouds of gas that drift between the stars. Warmed by stellar radiation, chemicals within the clouds emit ultrafaint light, a different sort for each kind of molecule. Observers have already used telescopes to identify the light from such substances as alcohol and formaldehyde. Now comes evidence of pure carbon in the crystalline form familiar to jewelers everywhere. Elizabeth Taylor needn’t get excited: these diamonds are microscopic in size. While such “microdiamonds” have been found in meteorites, no one realized how abundant they apparently are in the vastness of space.