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Lucara, a mining company recently uncovered a diamond. It is 1,111 carat and when you hold it would fill up your hands. The diamond came from the Karowe Mine in Botswana.

Lucara calls it "the world's second largest gem-quality diamond ever recovered and the largest ever to be recovered through a modern processing facility. The 1,111-carat diamond is classified as a "IIa," which means it has almost no impurities.

The machine that found the diamond is called the Large Diamond Recovery XRT. "XRT" stands for "X-ray transmission." The Karowe diamond mine is the first to use the XRT technology to recover gemstones. XRT is designed to sort out valuable stones from the waste rock.

The 1,111 carat diamond is the world's second largest gem quality diamond ever recovered and the largest ever to be recovered through a modern processing facility.

Unsorted material is fed into the XRT machine. A sensor system inspects it as the materials goes through, separating out the wheat from the chaff by looking for properties of the diamonds that differ from the host rock.

"The sensors recognize the target material on the basis of typical characteristics such as color, atomic density, transparency or conductivity," Tomra, the creator of XRT said. Similar sorting systems can also be used for gold, limestone and coal.

Lucara announced the discovery of the diamond on November 18, 2015 and the day after, they also announced the discovery of two other large diamonds. The two white diamonds, an 813 carat stone and a 374 carat stone, have today been added to the roster of incredible diamonds recovered from the prolific south lobe of Lucara's Karowe mine in Botswana.

William Lamb, President and CEO, commented, "I am truly at a loss for words. This has been an amazing week for Lucara with the recovery of the second largest and also the sixth largest gem quality diamonds ever mined. We are truly blessed by this amazing asset."