Astronomers Discover Planet Made of Diamonds
Posted on August 26, 2011
Astronomers believe they have discovered a small planet made of diamonds. The planet was previously a massive star that collapsed. The incredibly dense planet is made up of carbon, which crystallized into diamond due to extreme pressure. The astronomers first detected an unusual star, called a pulsar, using the CSIRO Parkes radio telescope. Pulsars are city-sized spinning stars about 20 km in diameter that emit a beam of radio waves.
The astronomers followed up on the pulsar, named PSR J1719-1438, and found the arrival times of the pulses were systematically modulated. They concluded that this was due to the gravitational pull of a small companion planet orbiting the pulsar. The planet orbits the pulsar in just two hours and ten minutes.
PSR J1719-1438 and its planet are part of the Milky Way's plane of stars and lie 4,000 light-years away in the constellation of Serpens (the Snake). Take a look:
The research by was published by an international research team led by Professor Matthew Bailes, Pro Vice-Chancellor (Research) at Swinburne University of Technology in Melbourne. It was published in the journal Science.