Comments on: Former Sun-like Star Is Now a Diamond Planet

By: Messier Tidy Upper

Messier Tidy Upper — Sun, 18 Sep 2011 09:35:27 +0000

Shades of Arthur C. Clarke’s Space Odyssey series where the core of Jupiter was a giant diamond.

Clarke explained in an afterword :

“The startling idea that gas giants might have diamond cores has been seriously put forward by M. Ross and F. Ree of the Lawrence Livermore laboratory, University of California, for the cases of Uranus and Neptune. It seems to me that anything they can do, Jupiter could do better, DeBeers shareholders please note.”
(Italics original, Page 296, ‘2010: Odyssey Two’ Clarke, Grafton, 1983.)

In actual fact, further study makes it seem unlikely the cores of “gas giants” Jupiter and Saturn are similar because they have different chemical composition and internal conditions to the “ice giants” Neptune & Uranus.

Still makes you wonder though.

@10. Fred Jones : Well carbon is a lot more common and abundant an element in our cosmos than gold so diamond makes more sense from that perspective.

Besides as everyone knows the Cybermen destroyed the last planet of gold! ;-)

By: Ben

Ben — Mon, 12 Sep 2011 22:20:33 +0000

My wife wants to know how many karats it is.

By: Roy F

Roy F — Mon, 05 Sep 2011 04:43:40 +0000

It is not the size of this diamond planet, that bothers me. It is the size of the hand that might be wearing it.

By: floodmouse

floodmouse — Thu, 01 Sep 2011 19:08:05 +0000

Wow . . . I just read a science fiction anthology, vintage 1966-1967, and it had a short story about a planet called “Aurora” where the surface was studded with diamonds. Everyone was geeked, until they found out the clouds of diamond dust blowing around destroyed all their machinery through friction. The only way to get back to Earth was to discover how to build an anti-gravity drive. I think the story was called “Mother of Invention.” It seems prescient, except for the fact that with high enough pressure to crystallize carbon into diamond, all machinery and human bodies must be instantly crushed. They would have bigger things to worry about than a little wear-and-tear on the transmission of their Jeep . . .

By: Fred Jones

Fred Jones — Wed, 31 Aug 2011 01:13:46 +0000

Diamond seems very unlikely to me since the density of diamond is only about 3.52 g/cm3 (pure water is 1) and will withstand phenomenal pressures without compression. A BUNCH of GOLD, with a density of about 19.3, would seem much more likely, though certainly material forms and even additional elements would almost certainly exist in such an alien environment. If it’s carbon, it wouldn’t be diamond; it would have to be some different form.

By: Georg

Georg — Mon, 29 Aug 2011 10:17:47 +0000

Even if I accept that this “companion” is pure carbon,
(which I think is rather unlikely)
one needs to be a sciene ignorant to say it is diamond.
Depending on size of the “planet” (gravity on surface)
the surface will be graphite or diamond, but more inward
there will be layers of carbon modifications unknown
to us still.
How do we know? Diamond is a high (some thousands of bars)
pressure modification, but it is far from a structure with
closest packing of atoms. So, at even higher pressures there
will exist metal-like modifications.
Is this due to : „season of the very smallest potatoes“?
Georg

By: yanom

yanom — Mon, 29 Aug 2011 02:22:48 +0000

By: Chris

Chris — Sun, 28 Aug 2011 19:13:53 +0000

This reminds me of the Doctor Who episode with the kid saying
“The stars are made of diamonds”
Didn’t have to wait till the year 100 trillion.

By: Daniel

Daniel — Sun, 28 Aug 2011 07:36:38 +0000

A Kardashian just put it on layaway.

By: Jimmy

Jimmy — Sat, 27 Aug 2011 11:31:42 +0000

wonder if there is Gold Planet to be discovered in near future.

By: megan

megan — Sat, 27 Aug 2011 06:12:48 +0000

I’m RWICH I’m RWICH!!! I’m GWEEDY LITTLE MIZER. BACK BACK AWAY FROM MY RWICHES. I shall hoard it in a few thousand years after light speed travel. DON’T FOLLOW ME!!

By: Yatima

Yatima — Sat, 27 Aug 2011 02:51:09 +0000

Can we name it Emma Frost?

By: Mike Lemonick

Mike Lemonick — Sat, 27 Aug 2011 01:49:04 +0000

Hey, thanks for the link to my story in TIME!

By: Relativity

Relativity — Fri, 26 Aug 2011 23:55:55 +0000

Just wondering if this companion “planet” in a liquid or plasma-state instead of a crystallized carbon? Is this liquid state possible with carbon at all?