Published December 2025 • Read Time: 10 minutes
Did you know that virtually all Rubies and Sapphire have tiny inclusions of Rutile known as “silk”? In fact, if a Ruby or Sapphire is missing Rutile that’s one of the most obvious clues that the jewel was lab-grown! Some natural gems display an asterism or “star,” a silvery shimmer that seems to move across the gem when it is rotated in the light. This asterism is caused by the light reflecting off the Rutile inclusions. This special sparkle is what distinguishes a Star Ruby from a regular Ruby. They have all the bright, generous, and loving energy of regular Rubies, but magnified to a glorious new level.
Star Ruby Healing Energy
Spiritual Healing Properties
Star Ruby inspires an intense desire to self-actualize – and gives us the courage to actually do it. It is a wonderful manifestation stone to help us to break free of self-imposed limitations. Star Ruby is a highly spiritual stone with deep grounding in the earthly plane. It connects the root, heart, and crown chakras together into a single powerful alignment. This energy invites us to shoot for the stars, but in a way that is profoundly practical and based on our own lived reality. Star Ruby helps us to look at life clearly, without apology or excuse, and to decide what we should do next based on the resources available and our own skills and personality. It has a very positive and life-affirming energy, that proudly declares we are worthy of a good life. Some aspects of that good life will be given to us and some parts we’ll have to work for. Star Ruby reminds us that the giving is good, and the working is good, and that all aspects should be honored by using them to become our Highest Self.
Emotional Healing Properties
Star Ruby has a passionate, friendly, and extremely generous love energy. It helps us to build healthy relationships, where both people prosper and thrive through the connection. It inspires both life-long love affairs, and short but sweetly profound encounters that we’ll remember forever. Star Ruby continually invites us to bring our best self to the table and to let our unique beauty shine. It shows us how to be a true friend to ourselves, to like and love ourselves as we are right now and also to be excited by every positive transformation. Star Ruby reveals what will bring us true happiness and peace today, and to pay attention to the beauty of our real life, rather than longing for a fantasy. It has a very positive vibration that draw us forward. It acts as a light in the darkness, leading us back to joy whenever we have been caught up in negative emotions. It reminds us that life is good and that we are more powerful and capable than we know. Star Ruby encourages us to jump into life and recognize that we don’t need anyone else’s permission or approval, we just need to love what is real.
Mental Healing Properties
Star Ruby encourages us to be more social and involved with the communities around us. It helps us to stay engaged and to be thoughtful about how we interact with others. It encourages generosity and to lead by example when the situation calls for it. It is a fabulous stone for abundance and prosperity, helping us to become more wealthy and to use our money and position in positive ways. Star Ruby helps us to be our Highest Self and to act according to our true values. It also reminds us that it is much easier to be our Highest Self, if we are raising up those around us. After all, a rising tide lifts all boats! Star Ruby encourages active, practical problem-solving. Whenever we’re faced with a big issue, Star Ruby simply tells us to “work the problem” and not get emotionally distracted by fear. Star Ruby helps us to keep our feet firmly planted, our head held high, and our heart proudly open.
Physical Healing Properties
Star Ruby is recommended for anyone who needs to give serious attention to their physical body and daily habits. It tells us as clearly as possible that having a healthy body makes everything else in life easier. When doctors tell us common sense things like, “eat healthier” or “lose weight” or “stop smoking” those suggestions are easy to ignore. Star Ruby challenges us and asks what would happen if we actually listened and did the sensible thing? No excuses, the world is full of excuses, but what if we actually made the necessary adjustments and followed the undeniable good advice? Star Ruby encourages us to trust the process and let the truth shine bright. It is a wonderful cheerleader, encouraging us on a day-to-day basis and celebrating our every success.
Geology of Star Ruby
Where does Star Ruby come from?
Star Ruby and Star Sapphire are varieties of the mineral Corundum. Both gems are found in Afghanistan, India, Kenya, Laos, Madagascar, Myanmar, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Tanzania, Thailand, United States, and Vietnam. Additional deposits of Ruby are found in Cambodia, Malawi, and Mozambique. Star gems can be found in any of these locations.
Mining and Treatments
In a few locations, Star Ruby and Star Sapphire may be mined at their primary deposit, tunneling directly into the rock, but it is generally not profitable. Most Corundum is mined at a secondary deposit, located along rivers downstream from where they were formed. Because of its heavy weight, Corundum is easy to separate from river gravels and can be picked out by hand. In many locations production methods are still primitive and done using hand tools such as pans, baskets and shovels. Very few, sometimes as little as 1%, are good enough to be used in fine jewelry. Star Ruby and Star Sapphire may be transparent fine gems, but the affect can also be seen on some opaque stones if cut and polished correctly.
Lab-created Ruby and Sapphire are widely available in the fine gemstone market. Transparent Star Rubies have been grown in labs for decades and can be difficult to distinguish from natural gemstones. All opaque Star Rubies are completely natural.
Ruby
Mineral Family
Ruby and Sapphire are different colors of the mineral Corundum, which is an Oxide mineral. The Oxide family has closely-packed Oxygen atoms with tiny bits of metal or semi-mental atoms occupying the space between. There are two forms of Oxide minerals, “simple Oxides” which only have a single type of metal or semi-metal, and “complex Oxides” which have multiple metals and/or semi-metals. Star Rubies are created with Corundum contains tiny inclusions of Rutile, another Oxide mineral.
Star Ruby’s energy works well with its family – other Oxide minerals. Try it in combination with Chrysoberyl, Hematite, Lodestone, Magnesite, Merlinite, or Rutilated Quartz. Try it also with other varieties of Corundum like Blue Sapphire and Yellow Sapphire.
Star Ruby Formation and Crystal Associates
Corundum is a crystalline form of aluminum oxide that grows in metamorphic rocks. It is naturally colorless and transparent, but usually contains trace minerals which change the transparency level and gives the gem its vibrant colors. Ruby and Pink Sapphire get their color from chromium, while Sapphires get their various color from iron, titanium or vanadium. All Corundum have tiny inclusions of Rutile needles, known as “silk.” In fact, the absence of Rutile is one of the easiest ways to identify lab-created Rubies and Sapphires. Sometimes the gems will display an asterism or “star,” a silvery shimmer that seems to move across the surface of the stone when it is rotated in the light. This asterism are usually caused by the light reflecting off the Rutile inclusions. In some Star Rubies, the asterism is caused by tiny inclusions of Diaspore.
| Mineralogy | Star Ruby |
|---|---|
| Chemical Formula | Al2 O3 |
| Cleavage | None |
| Color | Red |
| Crystal System | Hexagonal-trigonal |
| Form/Habit | Pyramidal, prismatic barrel-shaped |
| Fracture | Small conchoidal, splintery, brittle |
| Hardness – Mohs Scale | 9 (second hardest, after diamond) |
| Luminescence | Red (long and short wave) |
| Luster | Viterous (glassy) to adamantine (brilliant shine) |
| Mineral Family | Oxides |
| Specific Gravity | 3.97-4.05 |
| Streak | White |
| Transparency | Transparent to opaque |
History of Star Ruby
Ruby has been one of the most prized gemstones throughout history. Ruby is included in all major lapidaries, texts that describe gemstones and their powers. Uniquely, it is also referenced in the Holy Books of all five of the world’s major religions! While regular Ruby has a long healing history, Star Rubies are rarely mentioned. These gems might be part of a prized collection, but they are rarely seen as having a distinct healing energy. By contrast, Star Sapphires are more likely to be mentioned in lapidaries, probably because they are simply more common. Star Ruby and Star Sapphire showcase a vivid white six-pointed asterisk in polished transparent gemstones. Polished opaque gems have have a silvery shimmer or iridescent hexagon instead of an asterisk star.
High-quality Star Rubies are among the rarest gemstones and are worth more than a Diamond of comparable size. The largest Star Ruby is the Rosser Reeves Star Ruby which can be seen at the Smithsonian Natural History Museum in Washington DC. The Rosser Reeves Star Ruby was mined in Sri Lanka and is 138.7 carats. Rosser Reeve (1910-1984) was an American advertising executive and one of the first to produce television commercials. He coined the phrase “unique selling proposition” or USP which is a business and marketing phrase that is still widely used today. Reeve insisted that a product needed to actually be superior to its competitors and that product slogans should directly reflect the USP. He was a clever wordsmith and some of his slogans are still used today, such as M&Ms “melts in your mouth, not in your hand.” Reeve bought his Star Ruby in the early 1950s and carried it in his pocket for over a decade as his lucky stone that he affectionately referred to as “his baby.”
Another famous Star Ruby is the DeLong Star Ruby which belongs to the American Museum of Natural History in New York City. Mined in Burma (modern Myanmar) this Star Ruby weighs 100.3 carats. It was given to the museum in 1937 by Edith DeLong (1858-1940), a wealthy woman with a large gem collection. She had purchased the gem during the Great Depression for $21,400. This was during a time, when the median worker was earning less than 45 cents an hour and an annual salary of only $745.
In 1964, the DeLong Star Ruby was part of a major jewelry heist. The thieves, led by Jack Murphy (1938 – 2020), a Californian surfer, climbed through an open bathroom window in the museum’s upper floor. Once inside, they discovered there was only one alarm installed in the entire jewelry collection. The alarm was attached to a large Star Sapphire known as the “Star of India.” Much to the thieves delight, the alarm’s battery was completely dead and hadn’t been replaced in years. The thieves quickly pocketed the Star of India and the DeLong Star Ruby, as well as several other jewels. The thieves were eventually arrested in Florida while trying to ransom their stolen goods. The gemstones were found in a nearby phone booth. The trial that followed received wide-spread attention. In part because it was a gemstone heist, and in part because Jack Murphy was a handsome villain who made the ladies swoon.
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