Star Dust

I visited the National History Museum today in London. The second image show's small fragments of diamonds from star dust that fell to Earth in 1838.

'If you look carefully in the bottom of this little tube you can see white smudge of powder. This smudge is made up of millions of microscopic diamonds. These are the oldest things you will ever see. They formed in the dust around dyeing stars billions of years ago, before our solar system existed. The diamonds dispersed in space and eventually became part of the material that formed our solar system. Ultimately, some of them fell to Earth in meteorites, like the ones you see here.'

Needless to say I was quite moved by seeing this, it certainly puts life and the concept of time into perspective.