Diamond seas & icebergs @ Uranus/Neptune?

[docm]

Diamond seas and icebergs on Uranus and Neptune....

Discovery News....

Diamond Oceans Possible on Uranus, Neptune

By melting and resolidifying diamond, scientists explain how such liquid diamond oceans may be possible.

Oceans of liquid diamond, filled with solid diamond icebergs, could be floating on Neptune and Uranus, according to a recent article in the journal Nature Physics.

The research, based on first detailed measurements of the melting point of diamond, found diamond behaves like water during freezing and melting, with solid forms floating atop liquid forms. The surprising revelation gives scientists a new understanding about diamonds and some of the most distant planets in our solar system.

"Diamond is a relatively common material on Earth, but its melting point has never been measured," said Eggert. "You can't just raise the temperature and have it melt, you have to also go to high pressures, which makes it very difficult to measure the temperature."

Other groups, notably scientists from Sandia National Laboratories, successfully melted diamond years ago, but they were unable to measure the pressure and temperature at which the diamond melted.

Diamond is an incredibly hard material. That alone makes it difficult to melt. But diamond has another quality that makes it even more difficult to measure its melting point. Diamond doesn't like to stay diamond when it gets hot. When diamond is heated to extreme temperatures it physically changes, from diamond to graphite.

The graphite, and not the diamond, then melts into a liquid. The trick for the scientists was to heat the diamond up while simultaneously stopping it from transforming into graphite.
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[3488]

Fascinating Stuff, thank you very much docm for bringing this here.

I had heard of the possibilty of Uranus & Neptune having diamond encrusted cores before, the methane breaks down (methane being one atom of Carbon, four of Hydrogen) & the liberated carbon being crushed into diamond.

Diamond bergs on liquid diamond oceans, fascinating possibility. Would love to see an artists impression of these to see how they may look.

Uranus & Neptune are really mysterious worlds, really need Galileo / Cassini type orbiters & high pressure entry probes.

Andrew Brown.

 

[lukman]

Melting Point (Celcius). Boiling Point (Celcius). Diamond. 3550. 4827. Graphite. 3652 - 3697

http://invsee.asu.edu/nmodules/carbonmod/point.html

 

[bdewoody]

Melting Point (Celcius). Boiling Point (Celcius). Diamond. 3550. 4827. Graphite. 3652 - 3697

http://invsee.asu.edu/nmodules/carbonmod/point.html

At what pressure? Earth normal one atmosphere?

 

[bdewoody]

I still think one good way to get space activity the incentive it needs is to convince people they can get rich quick by finding precious minerals elsewhere in the solar system. Imagine if some lunar prospector brings back to camp a football sized lump of gold or platinum. Now I've got to admit that going all the way to Uranus or Neptune to try to grab a sack full of diamonds isn't very likely to happen. But then again maybe DeBeres is already planning an expedition.

 

[orienteer]

Thanks guys;

Now my girlfriend wants one.

 

[menellom]

Just one such 'iceberg' would devalue the worth of diamonds to mere pennies.

 

[R1]

Japan already brought actual samples from an asteroid, correct?

Also, would a giant sack full of baseball-sized diamonds really devalue the price of earth's mnute ones if the
ones from Uranus are brought to earth in total secrecy? I'm sure whoever brings them here would want
quite a bit of money for the trip.

 

[menellom]

We're not talking about a couple of diamonds in a sack. The Cullinan Diamond, one of the largest ever found, was only 100 grams. A diamond 'iceberg' say... 10 cubic meters (tiny compared to water icebergs)... would be something like 35 MILLION grams (if my math is right, as I recall diamond density is around 3.5 g/cm^3)

 

[High_Evolutionary]

You would be very surprised how abundant diamonds are in the universe.http://www.physorg.com/news123263654.htmls Also keep in mind that even the diamonds found here on earth have flaws, sadly I don't have the ratio(flaw to perfect). Uranus/Neptune still intriguing none the less. As a famous long eared 2nd officer would often say"Facinating".

 

[MeteorWayne]

Japan already brought actual samples from an asteroid, correct?

No, they are still tring to get the limping craft home. And they don't know for sure if they captured anything from the surface. (see the Haybusa thread in Missions and Launches)

But we have plenty of asteroid samples right here on earth...that's what meteorites (not meteors) are. Almost everything that makes it to the ground came from an asteroid with a few exceptions that came from the Moon or Mars.

 

[bearack]

We're not talking about a couple of diamonds in a sack. The Cullinan Diamond, one of the largest ever found, was only 100 grams. A diamond 'iceberg' say... 10 cubic meters (tiny compared to water icebergs)... would be something like 35 MILLION grams (if my math is right, as I recall diamond density is around 3.5 g/cm^3)

To mine even a 50 gram diamond cost what, 50, 100k? Imagine the cost to to go to Neptune. A few trillion dollars of mining / shipping cost would drive the cost of diamonds out of this world....a pun.....

A normal 10kt diamond would cost now millions