Astroprof’s Page

Rings

Published on Dec 18, 2008 at 4:13 pm. 2 Comments.
Filed under personal.

This is an image of the Ring Nebula (M57) taken a number of years ago by the Hubble Space Telescope. It is a cloud of gas shed by a star about 1600 years ago (give or take a few hundred years). The star, located nearly 2300 light years away, shed this gas as one of its last gasps as its core collapsed to become a white dwarf. It is a beautiful sight, and is a popular target for amateur astronomers and to show the public at star parties. But, it is not the ring that I am posting about.

The other ring, the one that I am really writing about for this post, is a piece of jewelry. I bought Byrd a ring!

It has a one carat pink sapphire in the center. She really likes pink, and historically sapphires used to be considered much more precious than diamonds (until the 20th Century marketing campaign pushing diamonds hit). On one side is a heart, since she is a biologist. On the other side is a star. You can guess who that is for and why! Both the star and the heart have diamonds in them to make them sparkly. And, they really do sparkle. Byrd doesn’t like just plain rings, and she likes the antique ring look, so the ring has some ornate detailing on it, too. We are both a bit unusual, so we wanted a ring that was unusual. We found a really nice jeweler here in town that could make the ring for us that would fit the two of us.

-Astroprof