In February 2005, the New Scientist reported on carbon rich areas of the universe that may contain planets with kilometer thick layers of diamonds. It is believed that these planets can withstand the greater temperatures and heat that is found in astral bodies that are closer to their stars. The creation of these planets may, it is speculated, be due to the proliferation of carbides and graphites that make up the rings of dust around new born stars forming into solid bodies as they are created as part of the star's growth pattern. According to Marc Kuchner at Princeton University, 'High oxygen levels produce silicate-based planets like the Earth, Venus, and Mars. But high carbon levels cause carbon compounds to condense out of the disc and clump together, producing carbon-based planets'. These planets were thought to be common in new star formations and were the basis of speculation that Uranus or Neptune also has this layer of carbon and under intense pressure at the centre of the planets diamonds may have formed along side other mineral deposits.
However, recent investigation into both Uranus and Neptune's probability of having this diamond layer has been refuted. Luca Ghiringhelli of the University of Amsterdam in The Netherlands led a team that performed computer simulations of the pressure, temperature and carbon content inside planets like Uranus and Neptune. According to the New Scientist, 'They found that the rate of crystallisation of carbon into diamond was exceedingly slow because Uranus and Neptune contain only 1 to 2% carbon'. The study's co-author, Daan Frenkel of the FOM Institute for Atomic and Molecular Physics in Amsterdam, showed that planets would need in excess of 15% of its total mass to be carbon before the process of diamond creation begins. This level of carbon can be found in bodies around stars that are being born and stars which are dying. White dwarfs that have thrown off their outer layers would be cooling. A perfect environment for liquid carbon to be present. Under pressure and slow cooling the carbon would crystalise into differing forms of diamond. Observations of a White dwarf star, BPM 37093 has astrophysicists offering theories around the size of the crystalline structure contained within.
We can find this process happening closer to home. Astronomers expect our Sun will become a white dwarf when it dies five billion years from now. Some two billion years after that, the Sun's core will crystallise leaving a giant diamond in the centre of the solar system.
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