Thursday, 22 September 2011

Current Events: Astronomers discover planet made of DIAMOND!!!!!!

Recently astronomers have discovered a new planet! It is said to be made almost completely of carbon, due to the density of it scientists have deiced that it must be crystalline, meaning made of pure diamond!
The Planet is about five times as big as Earth, and obrits a pulsar star (small 12.4 miles in diameter, its a dead neutron star that emits radiation, spins 100 times per second). The planet is approximately 4000 light years away with a little more mass the Jupiter but is about 20 times as dense.
All planets eventually die. And scientist have theorized that when the ploenet does reach the end it will expand and morph into a whit dwarf. If this does happen the diamond planet will begin to steel mass of of the white dwarf which will increase speed making it start to spin even faster.
Now, why is mass of diamond considered a planet? The white dwarf failed to merge with the pulsar meaning the star lost almost all of its matter....so it moved farther away from the planet meaning that now its no longer engaged in the fusion reaction. So the dead core of the planet is then classified as a planet.
Here is what Mathew Bailes from Swinburne University of Technology has to say. “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.”
I think that this new discovery is very interesting and i would love to find out more about it.


1 comment:

  1. Such a cool discovery isn't it?! How do they know it's crystalline int he core I wonder. I am always amazed at how astronomers know this kind of stuff when it is so far away.

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