Dr. Mona
L. Delitsky of California Specialty Engineering in Pasadena, California, and Dr.
Kevin H. Baines of the University of Wisconsin-Madison claim that Diamonds may
lie within the Hydrogen/Helium Oceans of Saturn and Jupiter!
Even
better, they may even be ejected by the planets' cores in volcanic eruptions as
liquid Diamonds and ejected into the upper atmosphere to fall as liquid Rain of
Diamonds as stated in the article “Saturn's
blings: Diamonds may float in the planet's atmosphere”, published October
18, 2013 4:10 PM PDT by Eric Mack, CNET News.
In
fact, some of the Diamonds within Jupiter and Saturn core may be so large that
they may be gigantic “Diamond-bergs” Floating around inside of the
Hydrogen/Helium core of these planets! Imagine that!
It’s
already know what conditions are needed for Diamonds to form and to even make
them artificially. Here on Earth, Diamonds and even Sapphires as explained in
my blog article
entitled “Sapphire
Screens for smartphones by Q1 2014 - Unscratchable Sign of Virgo is the Man of
Steel to revive Jamaican Alumina Industry” can be made from known material
under considerable pressure and temperature. It’s also been known for some 30
years that Uranus and Neptune may have Diamond Cores and not cores made of Iron
as Earth would have.
But
it’s the applications that are exciting. It suggests that Rare Earth Metals
aren’t the only thing we can mine and it’s not just the Moon alone that they can be mined from as argued in my blog article entitled “Obama
and Dr. Pell's Moon Express - Fly Me To the Moon, I''ll Drink To That”. We
can also mine Diamonds too as I’d long predicted in my blog article
entitled “DARPA
HTV-2 and 100-Year Interstellar Travel Research – Diamonds are Forever in the
Stars”.
Dr. Mona L. Delitsky and Dr.
Kevin H. Baines – Diamonds Rain under Presssure and Temperature
That’s
the premise behind their paper that they presented to the prestigious members
of the American Astronomical Society's Division for Planetary Sciences in
Denver in early ctober 2013 and then later published in the Journal Nature in
the article “Diamond
drizzle forecast for Saturn and Jupiter”, published 09 October 2013 Maggie
McKee, Nature Magazine.
Their
conclusion was based on new data about the phase diagram of Carbon using
shockwave techniques, the work of Knudson et al. 2008 and Eggert et al. 2010
coming from Sandia Laboratories and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and
newly published adiabats (pressure-temperature diagrams) about Jupiter and
Saturn carbon based on the work of Nettelmann et al. (2008, 2011).
Dr.
Mona L. Delitsky and Dr. Kevin H. Baines have thus predicted that Diamonds must
lurk not only inside of the liquid Hydrogen/Helium cores of these planets, but
it may be literally Diamonds in the Sky, Rihanna Style as stated in the article
“Diamonds
in the sky: Scientists find Jupiter and Saturn are awash in Diamonds”,
published October 09, 2013, Phys.org.
Diamonds in the Sky – It’s
Raining Diamonds
According
to the pair, this is how it happens. Lightning in the upper atmosphere combusts
atmospheric Methane (CH4(g)) which would normally turns to Carbon
Dioxide (CO2) and Water (H2O(l)). But thanks
to the lack of Oxygen, mostly bound up as ozone in the upper atmosphere and the
energy levels involved in lightning, the Methane (CH4(g)) splits in
Hydrogen (H2(g)) and Carbon (C(g))!
That
Carbon later clumps together and forms soot as shown in the Stoichiometric
Equations Below:
CH4(g)
® C(g)
+ 2H2(g)
2C(g) ® 2C(s)
This
Carbon (C(s)) soot then falls to the surface, mostly seas of liquid Methane
(CH4(l)) on both of the Gas Giants, where it aggregates, clumps
further and sinks deep into the oceans. As it sinks, it eventually reaches the
equivalent of the Earth mantle. But instead of being solid, it’s made of
super-cooled liquid/solid Metallic Hydrogen (H2(s)) and Helium (He(s)).
At
that depth the pressure is extreme. Combined with the low temperature, the Carbon
(C(s)) soot fuses, much as it would do in a Pressure Chamber on
Earth, forming first Graphite (C(s)) and then as it approaches the
center of the planets, Diamonds (C(s)). But closes to the core, it’s
mostly solid Hydrogen (H2(s)).
At
that depth, it’s Metallic Hydrogen, with pressures much higher than on earth.
This Crushes the Diamonds (C(s)) and the heat of the Core causes the
crushed Diamonds (C(s)) to rise via Vents to the surface, where
Volcanoes made up of Frozen Methane (CH4(s)) /Helium (He(s))
spew the Diamonds (C(s)) in a Pyroclastic flow of super hot Methane
(CH4(s)), Hydrogen (H2(g)) and Helium (He(g))
million of miles into the atmosphere, as the gravity on Saturn and Jupiter is
weak due to them being Gas Giants.
This
crushed Diamonds (C(s)) falls back to the Surface as Diamonds (C(s))
Rain. Some may even reach far up into the upper atmosphere of Saturn and end up
being swept up by the Gravity of its outer moons, forming rings of not only
solid Water (H2O(l)) but also Crushed Diamonds (C(s))!
Diamond Mining is Possible –
A Ticket to Jupiter Please
Dr.
Mona L. Delitsky and Dr. Kevin H. Baines appear to be of the imaginative sort.
Possibly too, they may be authors in their own right, as they publish many
papers on their work to get the University Students they teach interested in
Astronomy. So the pair lost no time in publishing their work along with a Work
of Fiction that illustrated the idea of Diamond Mining in the year 2469.
The
book, Alien
Seas, (Springer 2013) on Amazon with illustrations by space artist Michael
Carroll, feature a chapter written by Dr. Mona L. Delitsky and Dr. Kevin H.
Baines entitled “The Seas of Saturn”
in which they describe Diamond Mining activities on Saturn using Robots.
They
even predict that in that distant future, Diamonds are used in situ to build the hulls of starships
instead of being sold to Earth, as they’d disrupt the Diamond Markets on the
planet, albeit in reality the prices are already artificially high thanks to
the De Beers Cartel. But it also helps to show that when Rihanna sang the song “Diamonds
in the Sky” she may have been predicting the Future in the 25th
Century where this would be commonplace
All
of this make Astronomy come alive. Great to see that these scientists were
forward thinking enough to even write a work of fiction to bring their paper to
life, a rare talent among PhD used to peer reviews for work that no one ever
reads unless given as an assignment. Here’s the link to their Paper and the
Book that’s a decent read!
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