Scientists believe that there are solid diamonds which can also turn into liquid diamonds scattered inside planets Jupiter and Saturn.
Nearby planets Neptune and Uranus are known to have the same precious stone inside them. Scientists have studied the possibility of finding diamonds to other planets particularly Jupiter and Planets. Well, it seems that they found it.
Scott Edgington, Cassini deputy project, said that the evidence from the study is highly convincing. He added that diamonds may also be present in Mars and Venus too.
Mona Delitsky, a planetary scientist for California Specialty Engineering, told USA Today that the diamonds found there are small-sized gems that can be hand-picked, instead of boulder-sized stones. "We don't want to give people the impression that we have a Titanic-sized diamondberg floating around."
Jupiter and Saturn's kind of diamonds are of less quality. They are not made of the same material from those found in Earth. The stones were made of methane gas which is abundant in both planets.
When storms occur in Jupiter and Saturn, the methane gas turns into black soot very similar to the smoke that you get when you lit up the fireplace. Delitsky, and her colleague Kevin Baines, studied the soot and found that the soot sank to the surface then turns at first into graphite. Farther down the planet's core, the graphite forms turn into small solid diamonds due to the increased temperature and pressure. These fragments of precious stone float in hydrogen and helium.
These changes happen in very high temperatures. For Saturn, the temperatures are at around 5,000 degrees while for Jupiter, it was measured to be 7,000 degrees. These are way above the temperatures Earth diamonds need.
According to the study, the diamonds are only solid in the outer core of the planet. Once they sink further into the core, the heightened temperatures there melt the precious stones and turn them into liquid diamond.
"Diamonds are forever on Uranus and Neptune, but not on Jupiter and Saturn," Baines said."Diamonds are forever on Uranus and Neptune, but not on Jupiter and Saturn," Baines said.
The study was presented during the 45th annual meeting of the American Astronomical Society's Division for Planetary Sciences in Denver.
