Incredible space stone seems like it has a nebula trapped inside

This is just a stone. Not a photo of a stone with a Hubble Space Telescope image pasted over it. Not a hologram made inside some piece of glass. Not a portal to another dimension. Just a stone. It's like a some spacetime wizard captured a piece of the Universe and trapped it inside.

 

via AP

The stone is an opal. A "very fine American contraluz opal found" in Opal Butte, Oregon, according to Bonhams, the auction house that sold it last May for around $20,000. Their description says that the 4.6 x 4.4 x 1-centimeter gemstone is a "clear, transparent crystal body having a fine, firey play-of-color that is gem quality. The piece has a botryoidal jasper formation which forms a unique inclusion."

Personally, I find it more beautiful than any diamond or precious gem.