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 compressed
of carbon—i.e. a massive diamond orbiting a neutron star every two hours
in an orbit so tight it would fit insight Our own sun,” said Matthew Bails of Swinburn University of Technology in
Melbourne .
Lyin 4000
light years away, or around an eight 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 layers to the so called pulsar star it orbit.
Pulsar are
tiny, dead neutron stars are only around 20 Kilometers 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 telescope in Australia, Britain and Hawaii, allowing astronomers
to detect modulations due to the gravitational pull of its unseen companion
planet.
The measurements
suggest that planet, which orbits its star every two hours and 10 minutes, has
slightly more mass than Jupiter but 20 times as dense, Bailes and colleagues
reported in the journal science.
In addition
to carbon, the new planet is also likely to contain oxygen, which may be more
prevalent at the surface and is probably increasingly rare toward the carbon
rich center.
In high
density suggests the lighter elements of hydrogen and Helium which are the main
constituents of gas giant like Jupiter ,
are not present.
Just what
this weird diamond word is actually like close up , however ,is a mystery.
“In terms of
what it would like ,I don’s know I could even speculate” – said Ben Stappers of
the University of Manchester. “ I don’s
imagine that a picture of a very shiny object is what ae are looking at here.
This is dummy text. It is not meant to be read. Accordingly, it is difficult to figure out when to end it. But then, this is dummy text. It is not meant to be read. Period.
ConversionConversion EmoticonEmoticon