Huge rare pink diamond discovered in Angola

A huge rare pink diamond has been discovered in Angola, in southern Africa.

The 170-carat diamond is thought to be the biggest discovered in the last 300 years weighing in at 34 grams.

The gem has been named the Lulo Rose after the mine where it was discovered.

"This record and spectacular pink diamond recovered from Lulo continues to showcase Angola as an important player on the world stage," said Diamantino Azevedo, Angola's minister of mineral resources.

Pink diamonds are incredibly rare, and jewellery expert Joanna Hardy thinks that private buyers will likely be queuing up to try to own the rare gem. Although she said it's impossible to guess how much this one might sell for, until it is cut.

Similar diamonds have been bought for tens of millions of dollars in the past, with one - known as Pink Star - selling at an auction in Hong Kong for $71.2m (£59m) in 2017.

How are natural diamonds formed?

Rough diamonds (left) can be cut into fancy shapes and set into jewellery

Diamonds are rare minerals made of carbon that are formed deep within the Earth, around 100 miles below the surface in the upper mantle.

There, carbon deposits are exposed to an extreme amount of pressure and heat, which slowly turns them into diamonds. This process can take days, months and even millions of years!

Now you might be wondering how we find diamonds here on the Earth's surface, when they are formed in the Earth's mantle? Well it's down to ancient volcanic eruptions.

This took place a really long time ago, and forced the diamonds up quickly to the Earth's surface, where they stayed.

Nowadays scientists have the technology to make diamonds in laboratories, which some people argue is a more environmentally way of creating diamonds, rather than digging deep mines to get them out of the Earth.

One inventor has even created diamonds by using the carbon in our air, calling them sky diamonds!

Why are some diamonds colourful?

Most naturally coloured diamonds get their colour from chemical elements during the formation process.

For example blue diamonds get their colour from an element called boron, and yellow diamonds get their colour from nitrogen.

As for pink diamonds, scientists are not yet certain how the diamonds get their unique colour, but it is thought that it happens due to a change in the diamond's structure during its formation.