It's Raining Diamonds on Uranus

Maybe...

Is It Raining Diamonds On Uranus?

If experiments at the University of California, Berkeley, are any indication, future explorers of our solar system may well find diamonds hailing down through the atmospheres of Neptune and Uranus.

These planets contain a high proportion of methane, which UC Berkeley researchers have now shown can turn into diamond at the high temperatures and pressures found inside these planets.

"Once these diamonds form, they fall like raindrops or hailstones toward the center of the planet," said Laura Robin Benedetti, a graduate student in physics at UC Berkeley.

The team, led by Benedetti and Raymond Jeanloz, professor of geology and geophysics, produced these conditions inside a diamond anvil cell, squeezing liquid methane to several hundred thousand times atmospheric pressure. When they focused a laser beam on the pressurized liquid, heating it to some 5,000 degrees Fahrenheit, diamond dust appeared.

They report their experimental findings in a paper in the Oct. 1 issue of Science.

An interesting finding, but not apt to be an important source of high quality diamonds for De Beers any time soon.

Russia Discloses Enormous Diamond Trove

Russia reveals vast diamond source under 62-MILE-WIDE asteroid crater which could supply world markets for next 3,000 years

Russia is about to start tapping into a huge source of diamonds that could supply the world market for the next 3,000 years.Scientists estimate there are 'trillions of carats' lying beneath a 35 million-year-old asteroid crater in Siberia - more than ten times the global stockpile.

The Kremlin has known about the reserves under the 62-mile-wide impact zone since the 1970s. But it has kept it a secret until now because it was already reaping big profits in what back then was a heavily controlled market.

Contrary to the claim of secrecy, I find this citation from 1995, which talks about the presence of impact diamonds in these very craters.  Perhaps the magnitude of the potenitial find was not known with certainty, but the fact that the stone were present was.

The official news agency, ITAR-Tass, said the diamonds at the site, known as Popigai Astroblem, are 'twice as hard' as the usual gemstones, making them ideal for industrial and scientific uses. According to The Christian Science Monitor, the institute's director, Nikolai Pokhilenko, told the agency that the new source would cause a radical shake-up in the precious stones market.

Adriana Lima - Fantasy Diamond Bra

I've heard of diamonds in meteorites created by impact, but I'd never heard of earth bound diamonds altered by giant impacts.  Learn something new every day.

'The resources of super-hard diamonds contained in rocks of the Popigai crypto-explosion structure are by a factor of ten bigger than the world's all known reserves,' he said. 'We are speaking about trillions of carats. By comparison, present-day known reserves in Yakutia (a Russian mine) are estimated at one billion carats.'

The stones at Popigai are known as 'impact diamonds' which result when an object like a meteor strikes an existing diamond deposit. They are also unique, which will make them even more sought-after in high-precision scientific and industrial markets.

Diamonds are cool.  I'd rather have a colored stone, but being the hardest stone in the world is something, anyway. Maybe this will drive the price low enough that I can afford a few for Georgia.  Do you think she'd wear the bra?

Linked in The Classical Liberal "Rule 5 Gold!"