When a green-haired woman met a pink-haired woman at Newcastle Museum, you might imagine some kind of punk revival was happening.
Alas, no. It was, though, a meeting between two pretty hip women - Hunter artist Sharon Davson and Newcastle Museum director Julie Baird.
"She had the pink champagne and I had the green mint," Sharon said, of their hair-dos.
Julie added: "She can be an emerald and I'll be a pink diamond."
The pink diamond quip refers to the coins the pair are holding in the photo.
Sharon's artwork is displayed on the coins. They feature the story of the Argyle Diamond Mine in Western Australia and imagery from Sharon's art, such as jigsaw puzzle pieces.
Sharon worked on the coin project, titled Unearthed, with Newcastle jeweller Craig Leonard. They produced 288 silver coins trimmed in rose gold and set with four Argyle pink diamonds. We reported back last October that the coins were to be sold for $7000 each - $2 million overall.
Sharon has donated three prototypes of the coins to the museum. They include the first pressing of a solid silver coin.
The second coin still has its outer "wagon wheel" mould attached, which displays the production process.
The third coin is an example of the final coins set with Argyle Mine pink diamonds.
Ms Baird said the donated coins were interesting because "you can see the process of how the design worked and how it's made".
The Argyle mine has been responsible for more than 90 per cent of the world's pink diamond supply. It's been operating since 1983, but is set to close this year.
Sharon said the outback origin of Argyle diamonds were reflected in "every shade of the desert sunset, from cherry blossom pink, soft rose and alluring violet to dramatic red".
"When we did the launch, we had pink champagne and chocolate mints."
The punk hair, then, makes total sense.
Valuable Rock
The asteroid Psyche, which is 190 kilometres wide, has enough gold to make everyone on Earth extremely rich.
It also contains huge amounts of platinum, iron and nickel. Its metals are worth $16,000-quadrillion (that's a 16 followed by 18 zeros).
Astronomy guru Col Maybury tells Topics that Elon Musk's SpaceX and NASA will send a spacecraft to the asteroid. A rocket launch is planned in 2022, with a probe planned to orbit the asteroid in 2026.
"Scientists wonder if Psyche was the core of a planet like Earth that broke apart after a series of collisions, leaving only the core intact," Col, of Kurri, said.
"Scientists want to gather as much information as possible about this mysterious object. It may increase our understanding of our own planet."
Psyche orbits the Sun between Mars and Jupiter.
