Andrew Fazekas

for National Geographic News

Published October 11, 2012

The universe just got a bit richer with the discovery of an apparent diamond-rich planet orbiting a nearby star.

Dubbed 55 Cancri e, the rocky world is only twice the size of Earth but has eight times its mass—classifying it as a "super Earth," a new study says. First detected crossing in front of its parent star in 2011, the close-in planet orbits its star in only 18 hours. As a result, surface temperatures reach an uninhabitable 3,900 degrees Fahrenheit (2,150 degrees Celsius)—which, along with carbon, make perfect conditions for creating diamonds.

NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope collected data on the planet's orbital distance and mass, and resulting computer models created a picture of 55 Cancri e's chemical makeup.

"Science fiction has dreamed of diamond planets for many years, so it's amazing that we finally have evidence of its existence in the real universe," said study leader Nikku Madhusudhan, a postdoctoral researcher at Yale University.

"It's the first time we know of such an exotic planet that we think was born mostly of carbon—which really makes this a fundamental game-changer in our understanding of what's possible in planetary chemistry."


At only 40 light-years away, in the northern constellation Cancer, the gemlike planet sits relatively near Earth. In dark skies, 55 Cancri e's host star is clearly visible to the naked eye. (See gem pictures.)

Diamond Planet Has Odd Chemistry

The new models fit with previous studies that showed 55 Cancri e's parent star was abundant in carbon—much more so than our sun.

"If we make the assumption that the star and its surrounding planets are all born from the same primordial disk of material, then it makes sense that the entire planetary system would be carbon rich," said Madhusudhan, whose study will appear in an upcoming issue of the journal Astrophysical Journal Letters.

Princeton astronomer David Spergel believes the diamond-planet find probably represents the first discovery of a whole new class of planets whose chemistry has never been encountered. (Related: "'Diamond Planets' Hint at Dazzling Promise of Other Worlds.")

"Unlike our solar system, which is dominated by oxygen and silicates, this planetary system is filled with carbon," said Spergel, who was not involved in the new study.

"While it's still unknown exactly what implication this will have on our understanding of evolution of planetary systems," he said, "there's no doubt it is an important step towards understanding the full diversity of planets."

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/...y-science/

Andrew Fazekas

for National Geographic News

Published August 25, 2011

An exotic planet as dense as diamond has been found in the Milky Way, and astronomers think the world is a former star that got transformed by its orbital partner.

The odd planet was discovered orbiting what's known as a millisecond pulsar—a tiny, fast-spinning corpse of a massive star that died in a supernova.

Astronomers estimate that the newfound planet is 34,175 miles (55,000 kilometers) across, or about five times Earth's diameter.

In addition, "we are very confident it has a density about 18 times that of water," said study leader Matthew Bailes, an astronomer at the Swinburne Centre for Astrophysics & Supercomputing in Melbourne, Australia.

"This means it can't be made of gases like hydrogen and helium like most stars but [must be made of] heavier elements like carbon and oxygen, making it most likely crystalline in nature, like a diamond."


The new millisecond pulsar, dubbed PSR J1719-1438, lies about 4,000 light-years away in the southern constellation Serpens. Bailes and his team found the star during a pulsar survey using the radio telescope at Australia's Parkes Observatory.

A pulsar is a type of stellar corpse that emits powerful beams of radio waves from its poles. If these beams sweep across Earth's field of view as the star rotates, radio telescopes on Earth can detect the star's regular pulses.

A millisecond pulsar is thought to form when the pulsar is siphoning material from a companion star. The action of eating matter speeds up the pulsar's spin to hundreds of rotations a second.

So far it seems millisecond pulsars are rare, with only about a hundred found in the last 30 years. The study team found PSR J1719-1438 by using supercomputers to comb through almost 200,000 gigabytes of data—enough to fill more than 23,500 standard DVDs.

The data show that the pulsar spins more than 10,000 times a minute. The astronomers also noticed that the star's radio pulses have an unusual modulation, which the team concluded must be due to the gravitational pull of a small orbiting object

About 70 percent of the known millisecond pulsars have orbital companions, but PSR J1719-1438 is only the second thought to have a planetary partner. That's probably because planets don't form around millisecond pulsars in the usual way, Bailes said.

Astronomers think planets are created from dusty disks of material swirling around newborn stars. As this material orbits the star, gravitational interactions cause clumps to form, and the clumps build mass as they sweep through the disk.

By contrast, the new study hints that pulsars can strip material away from their companions until all that's left of the consumed star is enough mass for a planet-like object.

The newfound "diamond" planet probably formed from a white dwarf star—the core of a dead sunlike star—that was being stripped of matter by the pulsar. The leftover object likely represents just 0.1 percent of the white dwarf's original mass, Bailes said.

Based on their data, the team calculates that the planet orbits the pulsar in just two hours and ten minutes at a distance of about 372,822 miles (600,000 kilometers).

More Pulsar Planets Out There

Bailes and his team would now like to know exactly how rare their discovery really is.

In all likelihood, this weird method of planet production requires special circumstances that rely on the white dwarf companion having a particular mass and chemical composition.

But even if the diamond planet is a result of a perfect storm of special circumstances, there should be more such worlds out there, Bailes said.

"The most exciting aspect to me is that we've only processed a small fraction of space so far," he said. "With the new supercomputers coming online, we should be in a strong position to possibly make many more discoveries like this one."


http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/...e-science/

This post was last modified: 10-12-2012 12:59 AM by skyblue1 .

I'm not really that surprised since the universe is such a huge place and you never know what you'll find in the deep recess of space .... But still that is pretty cool that there's a entire planet encrusted in diamonds

I am going to check it out.....tomorrow

Well make sure you pack a lunch because it'll be a 40 light year trip as well sp100,000 because the temperature will get hot on the planet Lol Jk

all taken care of. I`ll share with you when I get back

Yay Now we'll be rich beyond Bill Gates's dream Lol XD

shhhhhhhhh

oops ... sorry ... I mean we're going to use those extraterrestrial diamonds for "researching" and stuff...

interestingly...I had a dream last night about ancient (alien) diamonds last night. I saw into their structure (rectangular?), and I sifted through different pendents which belonged to different Kings and notable characters throughout history.

Thats a bizarre dream

I think we need a hilarious dream interpretation thread .... Where people can post their bizarre dreams and others have to decide what it means and etc ... Lol

hooray for supercomputers.  200 TB of data...***....

Hooray........