Mercury's sparkling secret: Scientists find diamonds may be lurking beneath the planet's surface!
Scientists might have discovered a hidden gem beyond Earth! Recent analysis of data from NASA's MESSENGER spacecraft suggests that Mercury, the smallest planet in our solar system, could have a diamond-rich mantle beneath its crust, about 10 miles thick.
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Launched in 2004, MESSENGER¡ªshort for "Mercury Surface, Space Environment, Geochemistry, and Ranging"¡ªwas the first spacecraft to orbit Mercury. It mapped the planet and gathered crucial information about its geology and magnetic field from 2011 to 2015.
What¡¯s the story behind Mercury¡¯s possible diamonds?
A fascinating mystery on Mercury involves the planet's graphite-rich surface, which has led scientists to speculate about its early history. They hypothesise that Mercury once had a carbon-rich magma ocean that surfaced, creating the graphite patches we see today and contributing to its dark appearance.
Recent research suggests that this same process may have produced a carbon-rich mantle beneath Mercury's surface. Contrary to previous beliefs that this mantle might be composed of graphene, the new theory proposes that it is actually made of diamond.?
"Given the new estimate of the pressure at the mantle-core boundary, and knowing that Mercury is a carbon-rich planet, the carbon-bearing mineral that would form at the interface between mantle and core is diamond and not graphite," said Olivier Namur, an associate professor at KU Leuven, in an interview with Space.com.
Namur explained that diamonds on Mercury could have formed through two primary processes. The first involves the crystallisation of the magma ocean, which likely formed only a thin diamond layer at the core-mantle boundary. More significantly, he notes, the crystallisation of Mercury¡¯s metal core contributed to this diamond layer.?
"Mercury formed much closer to the sun, likely from a carbon-rich cloud of dust. As a consequence, Mercury contains less oxygen and more carbon than other planets, which led to the formation of a diamond layer," Namur said.?
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