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.
Diamond ping
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