Skip to comments.Astronomers discover planet made of diamond
Posted on 08/25/2011 12:32:57 PM PDT by NormsRevenge
Astronomers have spotted an exotic planet that seems to be
Skip to comments.Astronomers discover planet made of diamond
Posted on 08/25/2011 12:32:57 PM PDT by NormsRevenge
Astronomers have spotted an exotic planet that seems to be made of diamond racing around a tiny star in our galactic backyard.
The new planet is far denser than any other known so far and consists largely of carbon. Because it is so dense, scientists calculate the carbon must be crystalline, so a large part of this strange world will effectively be diamond.
"The evolutionary history and amazing density of the planet all suggest it is comprised of carbon -- i.e. a massive diamond orbiting a neutron star every two hours in an orbit so tight it would fit inside our own Sun," said Matthew Bailes of Swinburne University of Technology in Melbourne.
Lying 4,000 light years away, or around an eighth of the way toward the center of the Milky Way from the Earth, the planet is probably the remnant of a once-massive star that has lost its outer layers to the so-called pulsar star it orbits.
Pulsars are tiny, dead neutron stars that are only around 20 kilometers (12.4 miles) in diameter and spin hundreds of times a second, emitting beams of radiation.
In the case of pulsar J1719-1438, the beams regularly sweep the Earth and have been monitored by telescopes in Australia, Britain and Hawaii, allowing astronomers to detect modulations due to the gravitational pull of its unseen companion planet.
(Excerpt) Read more at reuters.com...
They should name it ‘Liz’.
Uh oh... Michele Obama just ordered it and put it on the national credit card
Planet De Beers.
We’ll never again have a shortage of phonograph needles!
On this planet, wedding rings feature stones made of coal...
More likely Callista Gingrich.
Evidently, its inhabitants are all female.
We should drag it home and shoot off a ball of garbage to take its place in orbit.
Fortress of Solitude
get the tractor beam ready..
You mean they’ve actually found Bizarro World?
I had a story idea with a planet made of gold, it’d have almost normal gravity at half the size because of the density.
I’m calling dibs!
hmmm, sounds like a nice place, I wonder if they have an RV park?
Did they know something we didn't?
I won’t tell my wife cuz she’ll want it.
I’m sure Michelle O’ is bugging BO to have it set into a ring. It would go well with her $500 tennis shoes.
Would that make you a miner for a heart of gold?
Martha Jones: What do you think it’s going to be like in Utopia?
Creet: My Mum used to say the sky was made of diamonds.
Picture of January Jones as Emma Frost in diamond form coming in 1... 2... 3...
No one seems to find it odd that astronomers claim to ‘know’ that some planet billions of miles away is made of, yet....
The aren’t sure what the core of the Earth is made of, nor even what is below the crust, and why it behaves as it does.
They don’t know what creatures exist at the bottom of the world’s oceans, and have kept discovering new creatures in environments they SAID were totally UNINHABITABLE by any life form.
They can’t predict the weather for more than a few days, nor can they predict earthquakes or volcanoes.
They keep revising their estimate of the MARCELLUS SHALE contents wildly UP and DOWN.
These scientists have absolutely NO EVIDENCE that any of the ‘carbon’ is in the form of diamond crystals. It is something they ‘conjectured’ and that was picked up by the media as a way to spark interest in the subject.
Remember, last week, IIRC, we had discovered the DARKEST PLANET in the Universe. (Which is a wild claim considering the fact that based on current theory of the formation of the Universe, there is a large portion of the Universe which is, and will FOREVER be, beyond our perception, due to the speed of light).
NOW, this does not mean that there is NOT a planet made mostly or even entirely of diamonds. But for scientists to claim they have found one, is seemingly status quo lately for scientists who find that wild speculation is what sells ‘print’.
Planets are a girl’s best friend?
"Pulsars are tiny, dead neutron stars that are only around 20 kilometers (12.4 miles) in diameter and spin hundreds of times a second, emitting beams of radiation. "
I think gold prices on that world would be very low. lol.
I wonder if a gal named lucy is up there...
Good post. I'm with you on this, like the recent report of space al