Atoms are made up of a dense nucleus that contains positively charged protons and uncharged neutrons. Studying diamond’s quirks at extreme pressures could help reveal these exoplanets’ inner workings.Īstronomer: A scientist who works in the field of research that deals with celestial objects, space and the physical universe.Ītom: The basic unit of a chemical element. Some of these exoplanets may have carbon-rich cores. Now, Lazicki says, “it looks like the same is true when you go to much higher pressure.” And that may interest astronomers who study distant planets around other stars. That’s thanks to the strong chemical bonds that hold its carbon atoms together. When it’s brought to the surface, it’s at lower pressure. Diamond forms at high pressure inside Earth. Your grandma’s diamond ring hasn’t morphed into super-stable graphite. Explainer: Earth - layer by layerĭiamond was already known to be metastable at low pressures. That is, it can stay in a less stable structure rather than shift to a more stable one. The result suggests that at high pressure diamond is what scientists call metastable. Diamond persisted even after this laser beating. The predicted new crystals never showed up. Then they used X-rays to measure the material’s structure. She and her colleagues pummeled diamond with powerful lasers. She works at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California. Explainer: What is a laser?īut at even higher pressures, scientists had predicted that new crystal structures would be more stable than diamond. That’s why diamonds form after carbon takes a plunge inside Earth. But given a forceful squeeze, diamond wins out. At normal pressures on Earth’s surface, carbon’s most stable state is graphite. Usually, carbon atoms take on the most stable state possible. Those patterns can be more or less stable under different conditions. Carbon’s atoms are arranged in different ways for each form. Others include graphite (found in pencil lead) and tiny, cylinder shapes called carbon nanotubes. The finding is surprising because diamond isn’t always carbon’s most stable structure. Scientists reported this gem of a result January 27 in Nature. That’s more than five times the pressure in Earth’s core. Its crystal structure holds up even when compressed to 2 trillion pascals. Diamond is surprisingly good under pressure.
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