A team headed by Matthew Bailes of Swinburne University of Technology in Melbourne, Australia made a sparkling discovery in 2009. They discovered a planet, PSR J1719-1438 b, circling a star about 3900 lightyears away. This planet, after careful analysis, appears to be very dense carbon and oxygen. Those with a metallurgical background may recognized that as the building blocks of diamonds.
How did a planet get made from diamonds? Scientists believe that this planet used to be part of a binary star, and that it’s big brother went supernova. The big brother then turned into pulsar and Planet deBeers was a red giant that fizzled out to a white dwarf. Its orbit is extremely close (with an orbital period of about 2 hours) to the pulsar and the extreme conditions of that orbit and its proximity to the larger body burned out the white dwarf and heated and compressed it to a point where it is believed to be almost pure diamond.
That’s all cool, but it leaves the question: is this where Superman came from?
[Image Credit: USGS]
I can't remember where I heard the quote but someone made a comparison on diamonds and the reply was "over valued, over priced and exceedingly common?".
Oh my, yes, and that's here on Earth. If they're correct about these carbon dwarf stars, diamond in some form of another is one of the most common minerals in the cosmos.
The only reason that diamonds are expensive as they are is the Oppenheimer family and the DeBeers monstrosity that they made.
Then we should make our way to space and mine that bad boy, bringing down the diamond monopoly that is crushing mens wallets.
Plus just imagine how much more you could sell space diamonds for as opposed to plain old earth diamonds.
As I said below…
"As for diamonds, there is always an excess amount of diamonds for the common person existing in the world both natural and manmade. Most are used in industrial applications anyways… "
Diamonds really have no value as it is all artificial.
Dammit, why do women have to get so upset when I say these things?
Don't sneer while saying it.
Have you ever tried the phrase "It's not the pants"? I guarantee she'll stop going on about the diamond wisecrack.
I kept wanting to know what else the diamond in my wife's engagement ring would do. Where were the lasers that would spell out "I love you", something, anything, other than just sit there. Before I met my wife I was considering buying a machine gun, her ring was about the same price and I know the ammo to feed it wouldn't have been as expensive as she has been.
A diamond planet made from a chunk of carbon dwarf? Hmmm, I suppose it's possible, but I wonder how the piece of dwarf star matter would react once that it's free from the intense gravity of the star? A cold dwarf star is a very, very dense object. Would the piece expand and hold together or shatter into bits, and how big would the shattered bits be?
A very interesting idea. Bring me a piece to examine, would you?
cold is a relative term. As for diamonds, there is always an excess amount of diamonds for the common person existing in the world both natural and manmade. Most are used in industrial applications anyways…
Invest in ogles of Rhodium, Iridium, Osmium, Palladium, Rhenium and Ruthenium instead. In fact, buy up the world supply and give people the middle finger.
By cold I mean fusion is no longer taking place.
You think we will ever get a safe, for the environment as there will still be radiation, fusion reactor going for power generation? My gut says that if we dont understand it by now we wont make it happen in 30-50 years…
Yes, I think that we'll get it sorted out eventually, it's just too useful of a technology to ignore. If the government, either ours or another with the resources, would make a real, long term commitment to the research, I'd bet they could achieve break-even in about a decade. The half-assed way its being supported now though, I doubt that 50 years is long enough.
If it were me, I would scrap the military budget 50% and dump it all into research to get the blasted thing built and running.
I believe the Chinese are several steps ahead of you here…