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Diamond Necklace Possibly Linked to Marie Antoinette's Demise Up for Auction

An historic and highly important necklace set with nearly 500 diamonds weighing a total of approximately 300 carats and formally in the collection of the Marquess of Anglesey is pictured during an auction preview at Sotheby's and is estimated to fetch 1,600,000 to 2,000,000 CHF in Geneva, Switzerland, Nov 7, 2024. REUTERS/Denis Balibouse
An historic and highly important necklace set with nearly 500 diamonds weighing a total of approximately 300 carats and formally in the collection of the Marquess of Anglesey is pictured during an auction preview at Sotheby's and is estimated to fetch 1,600,000 to 2,000,000 CHF in Geneva, Switzerland, Nov 7, 2024. REUTERS/Denis Balibouse
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Diamond Necklace Possibly Linked to Marie Antoinette's Demise Up for Auction

An historic and highly important necklace set with nearly 500 diamonds weighing a total of approximately 300 carats and formally in the collection of the Marquess of Anglesey is pictured during an auction preview at Sotheby's and is estimated to fetch 1,600,000 to 2,000,000 CHF in Geneva, Switzerland, Nov 7, 2024. REUTERS/Denis Balibouse
An historic and highly important necklace set with nearly 500 diamonds weighing a total of approximately 300 carats and formally in the collection of the Marquess of Anglesey is pictured during an auction preview at Sotheby's and is estimated to fetch 1,600,000 to 2,000,000 CHF in Geneva, Switzerland, Nov 7, 2024. REUTERS/Denis Balibouse

A diamond-studded necklace thought to be involved in a scandal that led to the eventual downfall of the last queen of France, Marie Antoinette, is being sold in Geneva next week.
The Georgian-era piece containing 300 carats of diamonds being sold by a Asian private collector in Geneva on Nov. 13 is valued at around 2 million Swiss francs ($2.29 million), Sotheby's said, although it may fetch much more.
The piece was at the center of a scandal in the 1780s known as the 'Diamond Necklace Affair' in which a hard-up noblewoman named Jeanne de la Motte pretended to be the French queen and acquired the necklace in her name without payment
A subsequent trial found the queen blameless, yet did little to alleviate her growing notoriety for extravagance which helped fuel the French Revolution and Marie Antoinette's beheading.
"It's likely or possible that some of these diamonds may have come from the famous diamond necklace that led to the downfall of Marie Antoinette," Jessica Wyndham, head of magnificent jewels sales for Sotheby's, told Reuters on Thursday.
"What we've seen is that jewelry with a noble provenance can generate a huge amount of excitement," she added, citing a pearl pendant belonging to the French queen which the auction house sold in 2018 for many times its initial estimate.
The diamonds of the original piece, crafted in 1776, were later sold piecemeal on the black market so are almost impossible to trace. However, some experts say the quality and age of the diamonds point to a match.
The necklace, which resembles a neck scarf, can be worn open or knotted at the front. One of its previous owners was Britain's Marquess of Anglesey and a family member wore it on the occasion of Queen Elizabeth II's coronation, according to Sotheby's.
"I think it's one of the most exciting pieces that we've had for a long time, not only with the provenance, but the design," said Wyndham.

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Chinese Rover Helps Find Evidence of Ancient Martian Shoreline

(FILES) This undated handout photograph released on June 11, 2021 by the China National Space Administration (CNSA) shows an image taken by a camera released from China's Zhurong Mars rover showing the rover (L) and the landing platform on the surface of Mars. (Photo by HANDOUT / China National Space Administration (CNSA) / AFP) CLIENTS
(FILES) This undated handout photograph released on June 11, 2021 by the China National Space Administration (CNSA) shows an image taken by a camera released from China's Zhurong Mars rover showing the rover (L) and the landing platform on the surface of Mars. (Photo by HANDOUT / China National Space Administration (CNSA) / AFP) CLIENTS
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Chinese Rover Helps Find Evidence of Ancient Martian Shoreline

(FILES) This undated handout photograph released on June 11, 2021 by the China National Space Administration (CNSA) shows an image taken by a camera released from China's Zhurong Mars rover showing the rover (L) and the landing platform on the surface of Mars. (Photo by HANDOUT / China National Space Administration (CNSA) / AFP) CLIENTS
(FILES) This undated handout photograph released on June 11, 2021 by the China National Space Administration (CNSA) shows an image taken by a camera released from China's Zhurong Mars rover showing the rover (L) and the landing platform on the surface of Mars. (Photo by HANDOUT / China National Space Administration (CNSA) / AFP) CLIENTS

With the assistance of China's Zhurong rover, scientists have gathered fresh evidence that Mars was home to an ocean billions of years ago - a far cry from the dry and desolate world it is today.
Scientists said on Thursday that data obtained by Zhurong, which landed in the northern lowlands of Mars in 2021, and by orbiting spacecraft indicated the presence of geological features indicative of an ancient coastline. The rover analyzed rock on the Martian surface in a location called Utopia Planitia, a large plain in the planet's northern hemisphere.
The researchers said data from China's Tianwen-1 Orbiter, NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter and the robotic six-wheeled rover indicated the existence of a water ocean during a period when Mars might already have become cold and dry and lost much of its atmosphere.
They described surface features such as troughs, sediment channels and mud volcano formations indicative of a coastline, with evidence of both shallow and deeper marine environments, Reuters reported.
"We estimate the flooding of the Utopia Planitia on Mars was approximately 3.68 billion years ago. The ocean surface was likely frozen in a geologically short period," said Hong Kong Polytechnic University planetary scientist Bo Wu, lead author of the study published in the journal Scientific Reports.
The ocean appears to have disappeared by approximately 3.42 billion years ago, the researchers said.
"The water was heavily silted, forming the layering structure of the deposits," Hong Kong Polytechnic University planetary scientist and study co-author Sergey Krasilnikov added.
Like Earth and our solar system's other planets, Mars formed about 4.5 billion years ago. At the time the ocean apparently existed, it might already have begun its transition away from being a hospitable planet.
"The presence of an ancient ocean on Mars has been proposed and studied for several decades, yet significant uncertainty remains," Wu said. "These findings not only provide further evidence to support the theory of a Martian ocean but also present, for the first time, a discussion on its probable evolutionary scenario."
Water is seen as a key ingredient for life, and the past presence of an ocean raises the prospect that Mars at least at one time was capable of harboring microbial life.
"At the beginning of Mars' history, when it probably had a thick, warm atmosphere, microbial life was much more likely," Krasilnikov said.
The solar-powered Zhurong, named after a mythical Chinese god of fire, began its work using six scientific instruments on the Martian surface in May 2021 and went into hibernation in May 2022, likely met with excessive accumulation of sand and dust, according to its mission designer. It exceeded its original mission time span of three months.
Researchers have sought to better understand what happened to all the water that once was present on the Martian surface. Another study, published in August and based on seismic data obtained by NASA's robotic InSight lander, indicated that an immense reservoir of liquid water may reside deep under the surface within fractured igneous rocks.