Astronomers have produced new empirical evidence that shows how the depths of Neptune and Uranus can rain a diamond, and the hypothesis says that the intense heat and pressure thousands of kilometers below the surface of these ice giants should decompose hydrocarbons, while compressing carbon into diamonds and sinking deeper toward planetary nuclei.
The new experiment used a SLAC national X-ray laser from the coherent light source (LCLS) to make the most accurate measurements to date of how the “diamond rain” process occurred – and found that carbon moved directly to the crystalline diamond, according to Russia today.
Plasma physicist Mike Dunn, director of LCLS, explained that it was not included as an instrument in the research paper: “This research provides data on a phenomenon that is very difficult to mathematically design: the inability of two elements, or how they combine when mixing. Here they see how two elements, such as making mayonnaise separating into oil, And vinegar. “
Neptune and Uranus are the most incomprehensible planets in the solar system, and they are very far – only one space probe, Voyager 2, was approaching them, and was not part of a long-term ad hoc mission, though, however, icy planets are very common in the Milky Way galaxy – According to NASA, Neptune-like exoplanets are ten times more diffuse than Jupiter-like exoplanets.
Hence, understanding the giants of ice in our solar system is vital for understanding the planets throughout the galaxy, and to better understand them, we need to know what is happening beneath the quiet blue outer parts, and we know that the atmosphere of Neptune and Uranus consists mainly of hydrogen and helium, with a small amount of methane And, beneath these atmospheric layers, a super-dense liquid of “icy” material like water, methane, and ammonia wraps around the planet’s nucleus.
Calculations and decades-old experiments have shown that, with adequate caffeine and temperature, methane can be divided into diamonds, indicating that diamonds can form inside this dense hot substance, and a previous SLAC experiment led by physicist Dominik Kraus at Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden was used. -Rossendorf in Germany, x-ray to prove this.
The research team revealed that the results reveal important model information, as there was previously a great deal of uncertainty, and this will become more appropriate than ever as we discover more exoplanets, and the team used hydrocarbon polystyrene (C8H8) instead of methane (CH4). ).
The first step is to heat the materials and press them to repeat the conditions within Neptune at a depth of about 10,000 km, as the optical laser pulses generate shock waves in the polystyrene, which heats the material up to about 5,000 K (4727 ° C).
In the previous experiment, X-rays were used to explore the material, and this works well with materials with crystalline structures, but to a lesser extent with amorphous molecules, so the image was incomplete, but in the new experiment, the team used a different method, to measure the extent of the X-ray scattering of the electrons In polystyrene.
This not only allowed them to monitor the conversion of carbon to diamonds, but also what happens to the rest of the sample, and in the case of ice giants, we now know that carbon forms almost exclusively diamonds, when they separate and do not take a liquid transitional form. And this is important, because there is something really strange about Neptune, the inner part of it is hotter than it should be; In fact, it gives 2.6 times more energy than it absorbs from the sun.
And if diamonds – denser than surrounding materials – rain into the planet, it may release gravitational energy, which is converted into heat resulting from friction between the diamonds and the surrounding materials.
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