Massive Diamond Planet Discovered by Astronomers

Diamonds aren't a girl's best friend any more!

No worries, they've haven't discovered a chocolate planet yet.

Much closer to home, Jupiter, if it has a core, is thought by some to have a diamond core about the size of Earth. Carbon-bearing compounds in Jupiter's atmosphere are disassociated by extreme heat and pressure farther down. As carbon atoms have a strong affinity for each other, even at high temps, they tend to clump together into granules or flakes. According to these models the denser carbon bits sift down through the Jovian 'atmosphere' (partly a huge ocean of metallic, liquid hydrogen whose rotation gives the planet its enormous magnetic field) and eventually make it to the core. By this time the heat and pressure have conspired to squash the aggregate into a more compact form - diamond - which finally comes to rest at the core.

Between Jupiter and 55 Cancri e, I'd say harvesting those diamonds from Jupiter would be the harder problem to solve even if you include getting to that other planet. Jupiter's interior makes 55 Cancri e's conditions look like a cakewalk.

I bet Debeer's has already bought the mineral rights to it.

Hmmm.... Who did they pay?

They'll never tell!!!

Heard they're paying it in unmarked 600-grit, wet/dry bills.

HAL of course!! (Back in 2001....)

"Open the bank vault doors please HAL."

Wow, greed transforms not only your soul ! Look what it did to that guy's hands, all skinny, bonny dry and long nailed...

Evidently space-faring diamonds are not all that unusual. In 2004 it was discovered that the white-dwarf star BPM 37093 (aka, 'Lucy' [in the sky with diamonds]), in the constellation Centaurus has a diamond core, as do most white-dwarf stars. The Sun itself will become white dwarf when it dies in 5 billion years or so.

The diamond at the heart of 'Lucy' weighs in at 1e34 carats.

_{1e34 carats carrots? Don't tell PlbMak.}