Astronomers discover planet made of diamond

[DavidU]

Very interesting stuff. A diamond planet.
http://au.news.yahoo.com/tech-news/a/-/technology/10114905/astronomers-discover-planet-made-of-diamond/

[CraigS]

Hi David;

Yes .. this news is everywhere this morning .. even on the radio news!
Good work with base observations from the Parkes Radio Telescope headed up by an Aussie Astronomer !

I notice that the conclusion of 'diamond' is based on the assumption that the planet was formerly a white dwarf in the binary pair .. I can't find anywhere, any measured evidence for this, (although that's probably not surprising .. carbon is the most likely core substance, I guess).

Because of its proximity to the neutron, and because its not losing mass, it has to be incredibly dense (at least 23g/cm^3 .. probably more). Hence the conclusion of compressed carbon .. diamond.

Very interesting. Thanks for the post.

Cheers
PS: Here's the animation (http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-08-planet-diamond-video.html) produced by Matthew Bailes, himself !

[GeoffW1]

Hi,

Arthur C. Clarke appears to have got it right again. In "2061: Odyssey 3" he has the core of Jupiter being composed of diamond, and now partly fragmented into orbiting bits.

Cheers

[renormalised]

Very interesting articles. It would be interesting to model the evolutionary history of this system as the original stars of this system must've been much further apart than what they are now. You've had the formation of the neutron star from a massive progenitor and then the build up of a carbon-oxygen degenerate core in a low mass star in its giant stage which must've spiraled in closer to the neutron star as it lost material to it.

Thinking about it, the low mass star may have been spiraling in to the larger star even before they formed their degenerate cores. If they were close enough as a pair to begin with, once the larger star became a supergiant, it probably engulfed the smaller star. The smaller star would've spiraled in closer to the central regions of the supergiant due to tidal and magnetohydrodynamic drag (due to the interaction of its magnetic field with the gases of the outer layers of the supergiant). The larger star goes supernova, leaving behind a thoroughly disturbed companion (now most likely heavier due to mass transfer) and the neutron star. And then the phase in the previous paragraph began after a period of time.

[lone77star]

I've been seeing this in the news, too. Now, I understand how they came to the idea that it was made of carbon. Naturally! Late stellar fusion. Thanks for clearing that one up. :)