Enigma, a 55-sided 555-carat black diamond, goes on sale.

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An estimated $7 million is being placed on this one-of-a-kind diamond.

The "Enigma," a one-of-a-kind black diamond, will be auctioned off next month, and one lucky rich or billionaire will be able to lay their hands on it. However, they may not be getting what they paid for.

The Enigma features 55 black facets and is cut to exactly 555.55 carats (111 grams). According to Guinness World Records, it is the largest cut black diamond in the world.

In the Middle East, a hand symbolizing protection and strength, called the Khamsa, is based on the diamond's shape, according to jewelry expert Sophie Stevens. (The Arabic word for "five" is khamsa.)

Dubai, United Arab Emirates-based auction house Sotheby's unveiled the one-of-a-kind gemstone on Jan. 17. Before being auctioned on Feb. 3 in London, the diamond will also be on exhibit in Los Angeles. According to Sotheby's, the Enigma is expected to fetch at least $6.8 million at auction. The auction company will take bids in cryptocurrency as well as traditional money.

Another selling factor of the diamond is that it may have come from outer space in addition to its unique hue, weight, and shape. As stated in a statement from Sotheby's, "The Enigma is believed either to have been generated either from a meteoric impact or to have emerged from a diamond-bearing asteroid." According to Live Science, black-diamond experts are skeptical of the company's claim and believe the gemstone was most likely created on our planet.

Anthracite coals

A geoscience professor at Penn State and a black diamond expert say that black diamonds have a high density of opaque mineral inclusions, particularly graphite (a dark gray form of carbon with a hexagonal structure, unlike diamond, which is a form of carbon with a tetrahedral shape) and metal sulfurides.

The Enigma is described by Sotheby's as a carbonado diamond, a Portuguese term for black diamonds. Heaney told Live Science that "not all black diamonds are carbonados." On the other hand, a carbonado is a form of black diamond that is both porous and polycrystalline, Heaney explained. The uranium-rich phosphates found in Carbonado diamonds cause "radiation halos" to form around the holes in the diamond's surface. Heaney explains that this feature renders them entirely opaque and darker than other black diamonds since they are highly absorbent of white light.

Polycrystalline and porous characteristics make Carbonados "superhard and supertough," according to Heaney. Drill bits used in the oil business for piercing hard igneous rocks, he said, are a good example of this.

Heaney believes the Enigma is likely a carbonado because of its huge size. He feels that the Enigma is pitted (meaning it is porous), which is consistent with a carbonado, but because the diamond has been cut, it is impossible to tell for sure. He said that it is difficult to discern from the photographs whether or not the diamond is opaque.

It's unclear where this came from.

Approximately 3.8 billion years ago, carbonados were discovered in Brazil or the Central African Republic, according to Heaney. It's still unclear how and where the diamonds formed during this time when the two countries were part of the same supercontinent known as Rodinia.

According to the auction house, carbonados may have an extraterrestrial origin. Heaney pointed out that while meteorite impacts have produced black diamonds in the past, these diamonds are often quite small, making them an unlikely source for truly massive carbonados like the Enigma. In his opinion, "I would be amazed if a diamond that huge came from a meteorite impact," he stated.

Carbonados may already exist in certain asteroids that crash on Earth, or supernovae may have created them. Still, according to Heaney, a planetary scientist, there is not enough evidence to support any of these possibilities.

UT Austin geoscientist Richard Ketcham, who has investigated black diamonds and carbonado specimens, told Live Science: "I feel the chances of carbonado specimens we've studied and seen data from outer space are low." The theory that carbonados came from space is a "minority perspective" among researchers, he said.

The most plausible place for carbonados to have come from, according to Heaney and Ketcham, is right here on Earth. It's not yet known how these black diamonds are formed. High pressures in Earth's middle layer, or mantle, shatter organic carbon, which is how most diamonds are formed. It's possible that the ancient carbonados, which may have predated life on Earth, formed this way, although this is improbable.

Regarding carbonados' origins, Heaney has come up "empty-handed," which leads him to assume that more investigation is required. This question hasn't been answered to my satisfaction, and I'm not sure anyone else is either."

Since the Enigma has been cut, Ketcham says, tracing its origins is considerably more difficult. He added, "The outside surfaces of carbonados presumably retain evidence about their origin, which is now probably destroyed." As a result, the auction house's assertion that the Enigma was recovered from outer space is speculative.

Heaney hopes that whoever purchases the Enigma would put it on display rather than keep it hidden away in a private collection, regardless of how it came into existence. Heaney observed that "many beautiful diamonds have remained hidden for decades." Billionaires can't buy natural wonders from museums since museums can't afford them.

Reference: https://www.livescience.com/enigma-black-diamond-auction

Image source: https://pixabay.com/id/illustrations/berlian-batu-permata-perhiasan-1199183/

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