Scientists discover nearby ‘diamond planet’(extremetech.com)
extremetech.com
Scientists discover nearby ‘diamond planet’
http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/137719-scientists-discover-nearby-diamond-planet
47 comments
Their parent company Ziff Davis has 5 or 6 different accounts they use to spam HN.
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4555756
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4555756
The interesting thing about a 'diamond' planet is that it would be a waste of time. Diamond's value is superficial - it can't actually be used for anything (except cutting), so mining this planet would essentially cause diamonds to become worthless.
Whats more interesting is a planet made up of rare metals - that would still cause the prices to drop (this assumes the mining can easily generate lots of metal easily, transport costs aside), but can immediately be turned around into something useful.
Whats more interesting is a planet made up of rare metals - that would still cause the prices to drop (this assumes the mining can easily generate lots of metal easily, transport costs aside), but can immediately be turned around into something useful.
Rare earth metals are, despite the name, not actually all that rare. They're fairly abundant in the Earth's crust and mantle.
The reason they're more expensive than, say, iron, isn't that they're rare but they're rather difficult to purify from each other. They share the same outer shell electrons (s and d), and what separates them from each other is their f-shell electrons. Those, however, are buried inside the other shells. So their differences are largely driven by differences in atomic radius, differences which are small in chemical effect.
Which is all to say that the cost of producing them wouldn't change too much in that scneario, even if you had access to a trillion tons of ore for free.
The reason they're more expensive than, say, iron, isn't that they're rare but they're rather difficult to purify from each other. They share the same outer shell electrons (s and d), and what separates them from each other is their f-shell electrons. Those, however, are buried inside the other shells. So their differences are largely driven by differences in atomic radius, differences which are small in chemical effect.
Which is all to say that the cost of producing them wouldn't change too much in that scneario, even if you had access to a trillion tons of ore for free.
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And the diamonds we do need for cutting can be synthesised on Earth pretty cheaply.
It has uses beyond cutting:
<http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/tech/butler-diamonds.html>;
It ends with a speculation that mining other planets doesn't sound so crazy any more.
Idiots. Diamond is not intrinsically valuable; carbon is not rare, and industrial diamond is fairly cheap. Humans (and in particular one cartel) set a high value on gemstone diamonds.
It's going to be cheaper to turn waste carbon into diamond here on Earth than it is to boost any sort of mining platform out to another planet or our own asteroid belt, and this will continue to be true for many many years.
Idiots. Diamond is not intrinsically valuable; carbon is not rare, and industrial diamond is fairly cheap. Humans (and in particular one cartel) set a high value on gemstone diamonds.
It's going to be cheaper to turn waste carbon into diamond here on Earth than it is to boost any sort of mining platform out to another planet or our own asteroid belt, and this will continue to be true for many many years.
"Idiots"? Seriously?
The speculation is not merely about planets that are lightyears away. The speculation includes asteroids. The Google cofounders, and James Cameron, and others, are funding Planetary Resources, which will mine near Earth asteroids. They will be launching their first satellites in 2-3 years and plan on beginning mining operations in about 10 years.
I think you are being extremely shortsighted and rude to call people "idiots" when they speculate about mining the asteroids.
Edit: It saddens me that the top post in this thread contains such hate and name-calling towards someone with the imagination to think about the future. Come on, HN, you're supposed to be better than this.
The speculation is not merely about planets that are lightyears away. The speculation includes asteroids. The Google cofounders, and James Cameron, and others, are funding Planetary Resources, which will mine near Earth asteroids. They will be launching their first satellites in 2-3 years and plan on beginning mining operations in about 10 years.
I think you are being extremely shortsighted and rude to call people "idiots" when they speculate about mining the asteroids.
Edit: It saddens me that the top post in this thread contains such hate and name-calling towards someone with the imagination to think about the future. Come on, HN, you're supposed to be better than this.
The criticism does not seem to be against asteroid mining in general, but against the idea that diamonds in space would make it more viable. Diamonds, especially for industrial use, are not something Earth has a shortage of.
Why would it ever matter if Earth has a shortage of them, or if Earth needs them at all? Since we're already talking about large-scale spaceship operations, consider the diamonds may be useful in space. Perhaps extraordinarily useful.
Earth has no shortage of water, either (if you include salt water). But in space, water is one of the most valuable things imaginable. It's rocket fuel, humans need to drink it, etc. Perhaps diamond would be similar.
Earth has no shortage of water, either (if you include salt water). But in space, water is one of the most valuable things imaginable. It's rocket fuel, humans need to drink it, etc. Perhaps diamond would be similar.
And perhaps not.
OP says mining diamonds from outer space is nonsense, with good arguments, and you say ... what exactly? That space-mined diamonds are somehow more valuable than earth-produced ones?
OP says mining diamonds from outer space is nonsense, with good arguments, and you say ... what exactly? That space-mined diamonds are somehow more valuable than earth-produced ones?
> and you say ... what exactly?
I say, show respect for those with opinions. Maybe diamonds in space are 100% useless, I would be totally willing to accept that fact. I'm only upset at the rudeness and name calling.
> That space-mined diamonds are somehow more valuable than earth-produced ones?
If, in 20 years, we find a use for diamonds in space, then yes, they would be much more valuable than Earth ones since you don't have to transport them to space. Additionally, it seems quite likely to me that a strong compound like diamond would indeed have its use in space.
I say, show respect for those with opinions. Maybe diamonds in space are 100% useless, I would be totally willing to accept that fact. I'm only upset at the rudeness and name calling.
> That space-mined diamonds are somehow more valuable than earth-produced ones?
If, in 20 years, we find a use for diamonds in space, then yes, they would be much more valuable than Earth ones since you don't have to transport them to space. Additionally, it seems quite likely to me that a strong compound like diamond would indeed have its use in space.
Fair enough, OP's "idiots" was unnecessarily harsh.
There is indeed some chance that mining diamonds from far-off planets would make economical sense. But there is some chance for almost anything happening. It's a trivial statement that doesn't add anything IMO.
There is indeed some chance that mining diamonds from far-off planets would make economical sense. But there is some chance for almost anything happening. It's a trivial statement that doesn't add anything IMO.
They're on a planet, so they'd still have to be transported into space.
Just because they're not on this planet...
Just because they're not on this planet...
> They're on a planet
or a small asteroid, which has a negligible gravity well.
or a small asteroid, which has a negligible gravity well.
Meaningful quantities of useful Diamonds are not going to form outside of significant gravity wells so 'asteroid' mining of diamonds is a waste of time. Diamonds are no where near rare enough to be worth transporting out of deep gravity wells and back to earth when they can be manufactured here cheaply carbon one of the most common elements.
Asteroid mining of other stuff is a separate issue.
Asteroid mining of other stuff is a separate issue.
> Meaningful quantities of useful Diamonds are not going to form outside of significant gravity wells so 'asteroid' mining of diamonds is a waste of time.
Meaningful quantities of helium are not going to form outside the center of stars. But that doesn't mean the universe isn't littered with it due to star explosions and such. There's plenty of reason to think that diamond will exist in places that it didn't originally form.
Meaningful quantities of helium are not going to form outside the center of stars. But that doesn't mean the universe isn't littered with it due to star explosions and such. There's plenty of reason to think that diamond will exist in places that it didn't originally form.
Helium also forms during alpha decay, perhaps not in meaningful amounts to the grand scale of things, but significant to Earthbound helium production, since 99% of it comes from this source.
Let's put this another way, the average jewelry store probably has more diamonds over 1/10th carrot than the entire asteroid belt. They can form from impacts, but without significant pressure they turn into other forms of carbon fairly quickly on geological timescales.
As to helium, there is plenty of it on earth to do all sorts of useful things.
PS: Yea, that means diamonds are not forever.
As to helium, there is plenty of it on earth to do all sorts of useful things.
PS: Yea, that means diamonds are not forever.
Until DeBeers makes sure that 'Certified Space Diamonds' are what you really want if you want to impress your significant other.
Related article on the topic of diamonds and cartel: http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/print/1982/02/have-you-e...
The value of something is not determined by what it can be used for. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supply_and_demand
Of course it's not - but right now the value does not follow the real supply and demand curve, but is fixed by DeBeers, et al. We have lots and lots of diamonds, and if not for a clever decades long marketing campaign, they would be mostly worthless. Going to space to get more diamonds (which we don't need, because we already have too many of them) would be a colossal waste of resources.
This exactly. DeBeers changed the way Americans value diamonds, adjusting the demand curve upwards, so Americans expect to pay more money for diamonds.
Value isn't an intrinsic quality of anything. Humans value things, usually based on their relative utility.
(Likewise, quality isn't an intrinsic value of anything, either. Humans assign qualities to things. There is a buzzword called "quality" which means "homogenized reproducibility")
(Likewise, quality isn't an intrinsic value of anything, either. Humans assign qualities to things. There is a buzzword called "quality" which means "homogenized reproducibility")
Who's to say the value of Diamond has yet been truly appreciated? If I'm understanding things correctly this diamond would have formed under conditions we simply cannot recreate in a manufacturing process, given the magnitude of time and energy involved. It is not inconceivable that the properties of these carbon crystals could be VERY appealing. For an example I recall a statistic that claimed the entire _data throughput_ of the UK could be encoded on a crystal of carbon barely the size of a grain of sand. Space elevators and orbital rings spring to mind as well, and who's even saying that we want to get this stuff back to dirty old earth when we're jetting around the cosmos in our hyper diamond meta skeletons on stellar farm errands!?
The entire data throughput of the UK over what amount of time?
We have tons of carbon on earth. We inhale and exhale it all the time. It's one of the top 4 atoms in the universe, along with hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen.
Turning matter from diamond to carbon-fiber, or anything else, takes much energy. This is why diamond is so hard to cut - the carbon atoms have very strong magnetic bonds, and separating them takes a lot more force than separating iron atoms when cutting steel.
Turning matter from diamond to carbon-fiber, or anything else, takes much energy. This is why diamond is so hard to cut - the carbon atoms have very strong magnetic bonds, and separating them takes a lot more force than separating iron atoms when cutting steel.
Not to mention, diamond is only expensive because its rare and expensive to produce (and people tend to prefer to real thing...)
Once there is a lot of it, the price drops. Anyone remember the Futurama episode where they go to the gold planet?
Once there is a lot of it, the price drops. Anyone remember the Futurama episode where they go to the gold planet?
It's neither rare, nor expensive to produce - and people tend to prefer real thing because DeBeers manufactured this trend through a decades-long marketing campaign. An article from 80's covers it quite well:
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/print/1982/02/have-you-e...
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/print/1982/02/have-you-e...
Diamond is only rare because DeBeers keeps it that way. Raw diamonds are actually fairly common as far as gemstones go.
Given that the article did end with speculation that half a second of thought should've suppressed, "idiots" doesn't sound so extreme. It just sounds as speculative as the text it references.
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How can they possibly know what the planet is made of? Does anyone know?
Here's the paper.
http://arxiv.org/pdf/1210.2720.pdf
It's reasoned guess. They know three things about the planet: its mass, its size (radius/volume), and its orbital distance. They also know some of the chemistry of the star it orbits.
From the mass and radius, they inferred the density of the planet is a lower than other rock planets. They can explain low density in several ways. One is a thick layer of low-density supercritical water on the surface. Very large, extremely hot "oceans". An alternative is low-density graphite or diamond inside the mantle.
What they show is that a carbon interior is plausible given the data. They model several things. For one, the planet's formation from a primordial dust disk -- given the star's chemistry, which is unusually carbon-rich, and physical models of how elements separate out in accreting to planets. And they model the planet's current interior, based on known physics. They can't directly observe the planet chemistry; they can only model it.
Where are the measurements from?
The planet's radius/size was measured photometrically when it passed between us and its star (an occlusion, like an eclipse). They don't have the resolution to see the planet, but they can measure the reduction in the star's brightness when it occludes, and hence how big of a cross-section it has.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transiting_extrasolar_planets#T...
The mass was discovered by measuring the gravitational effect on its star. It is a very tiny effect -- it's too small to see any difference in the star's position. But small changes in velocity shift the frequency of its emitted light, and that can be detected. This is a very small effect: the star's velocity variation due to this planet is just 6.3 meters/second, and it was measured with 0.2 meter/second precision! That's how they know the mass to within 5% accuracy.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radial_velocity_method
http://arxiv.org/pdf/1208.5709v1.pdf
The star's element composition is known by spectrometry -- measuring how much of an atom or ion is at its surface, by how much that atom absorbs light of a specific color.
http://spiff.rit.edu/classes/phys230/lectures/spec_interp/sp...
http://arxiv.org/pdf/1210.2720.pdf
It's reasoned guess. They know three things about the planet: its mass, its size (radius/volume), and its orbital distance. They also know some of the chemistry of the star it orbits.
From the mass and radius, they inferred the density of the planet is a lower than other rock planets. They can explain low density in several ways. One is a thick layer of low-density supercritical water on the surface. Very large, extremely hot "oceans". An alternative is low-density graphite or diamond inside the mantle.
What they show is that a carbon interior is plausible given the data. They model several things. For one, the planet's formation from a primordial dust disk -- given the star's chemistry, which is unusually carbon-rich, and physical models of how elements separate out in accreting to planets. And they model the planet's current interior, based on known physics. They can't directly observe the planet chemistry; they can only model it.
Where are the measurements from?
The planet's radius/size was measured photometrically when it passed between us and its star (an occlusion, like an eclipse). They don't have the resolution to see the planet, but they can measure the reduction in the star's brightness when it occludes, and hence how big of a cross-section it has.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transiting_extrasolar_planets#T...
The mass was discovered by measuring the gravitational effect on its star. It is a very tiny effect -- it's too small to see any difference in the star's position. But small changes in velocity shift the frequency of its emitted light, and that can be detected. This is a very small effect: the star's velocity variation due to this planet is just 6.3 meters/second, and it was measured with 0.2 meter/second precision! That's how they know the mass to within 5% accuracy.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radial_velocity_method
http://arxiv.org/pdf/1208.5709v1.pdf
The star's element composition is known by spectrometry -- measuring how much of an atom or ion is at its surface, by how much that atom absorbs light of a specific color.
http://spiff.rit.edu/classes/phys230/lectures/spec_interp/sp...
Via a Spectrometer
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spectrometer
You can do it yourself. Do you know why the sky is blue? Because blue light waves are scattered by molecules in our atmosphere. The light emanating from distant stars also interact with the molecules in the star and nearby planets etc.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spectrometer
You can do it yourself. Do you know why the sky is blue? Because blue light waves are scattered by molecules in our atmosphere. The light emanating from distant stars also interact with the molecules in the star and nearby planets etc.
I thought we couldn't see the light directly, only the wobble in the star?
Also wouldn't the light only show us what's on the surface? Or perhaps only the atmosphere? They seem to know there's diamond inside the planet.
Also wouldn't the light only show us what's on the surface? Or perhaps only the atmosphere? They seem to know there's diamond inside the planet.
Perhaps they performed spectroscopy on the star, found a lot of carbon, and reasoned that the star's planet would also be carbon-heavy.
We see the wobble in the star via the frequency of it's light changing.
My understanding is that the assumption of diamond is made by making many measurements of the absorption spectra of the star to try and get an idea of what kind of matter is floating around it as dust and gas and from that trying to work out what the balance of chemistry in that system is likely to be.
You can also look at the star's spectra during a transit of the planet and use that to work out information about the atmosphere and surface.
At the end of the day, they do not know what is inside the planet, this is just their best guess based on what they can measure.
My understanding is that the assumption of diamond is made by making many measurements of the absorption spectra of the star to try and get an idea of what kind of matter is floating around it as dust and gas and from that trying to work out what the balance of chemistry in that system is likely to be.
You can also look at the star's spectra during a transit of the planet and use that to work out information about the atmosphere and surface.
At the end of the day, they do not know what is inside the planet, this is just their best guess based on what they can measure.
Presumably they inferred its mass from its orbital motion, and its size from how much light it blocks off as it crosses in front of its star. Density is smply mass divided by volume. Then they compare it to the density of known materials and find that only graphite and diamond are a good match.
A planet made out of diamond and graphite. Why do I feel like this would be a terrible place to visit as a human, even with a breathing suit. If the crystal caves are any indication of what this planet would be like, it would be incredibly inhospitable --- though possibly quite pretty.
9x10^28 carats. That's a pretty big ring.
(this is an honest question, while I am trying to make a point, I would actually like to hear other peoples opinions)
Something always seems off about the quality of their articles compared to the other (above average) content that usually makes its way to the front page.