A thick diamond layer inside Mercury
Scientists utilizing information from NASA’s MESSENGER spacecraft have said Mercury might have a 10-mile-thick (16-km-thick) diamond layer beneath its crust. The scientists consider a subterranean magma ocean and the planet’s steel core crystallized below intense strain. They stated the ocean and core would have been saturated in carbon. And with the assistance of excessive pressure-temperature experiments, thermodynamic fashions and the newest geophysical fashions of the inner construction of the planet, they decided Mercury was able to producing a thick diamond layer.
The staff of scientists from China and Belgium published their peer-reviewed examine within the journal Nature Communications on June 14, 2024.
Diamonds kind from carbon below excessive strain
Mercury is the closest planet to the sun in our solar system. Scientists have lengthy believed the little planet has giant, darkish patches of graphite on its floor. Graphite is a crystallized type of carbon fabricated from stacked layers of graphene. This graphite steered Mercury would possibly as soon as have had a subterranean magma ocean, and magma that reached the planet’s floor would have created the solidified graphite swimming pools. However as a substitute of a graphite mantle below the crust, scientists stated a part of it is perhaps diamond.
The rocky planets are inclined to have three important layers: a core, mantle and crust. The scientists stated that – as a result of quantity of strain within the planet’s inside – the boundary between the core and mantle ought to have turned to diamond. The magma ocean mantle would have crystallized on the boundary with the core. Not solely that, however a few of the core itself – which might have been liquid within the planet’s early days – would have crystallized over time, too, forming diamonds. Diamond is much less dense than steel, so it will have floated to the highest of the planet’s core.
These diamonds – in the event that they exist – would lie a whole bunch of miles/kilometers under the planet’s crust. So they might not be a possible goal for a mining mission.
Diamonds in different areas within the solar system
As a result of Mercury is so near the sun, it was uncovered to extra carbon within the cloud of fuel and dust that shaped the sun. So Mercury incorporates extra carbon than the opposite inner planets (Venus, Earth and Mars). However scientists have suggested that Earth, additionally, has a diamond layer on the boundary of the core and mantle. So diamonds are usually not uncommon in our solar system.
Actually, scientists have thought for many years that diamonds could also be discovered within the cores of Uranus and Neptune. And Jupiter and Saturn could also be awash in diamonds, with their deep atmospheres containing chunks of diamond floating in a liquid hydrogen/helium fluid. Meteorites have diamonds, too. In 2022, scientists reported discovering diamonds in 4 meteorites picked up in North Africa.
Backside line: A global staff of scientists have stated Mercury might have a layer of diamonds 10 miles (16 km) thick close to the boundary of the planet’s core and mantle.
Source: A diamond-bearing core-mantle boundary on Mercury
