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SALT LAKE CITY -- Though it sounds like something out of a pulp science fiction novel from the turn of the century, in fact it is being reported in the journal "Science": There exists a planet that is one obscenely large diamond roughly the mass of Jupiter.
Back in 2009, astronomers found a very rapidly rotating pulsar, a high energy star that rotates hundreds of times a second. In studying this pulsar, scientists noticed a gravitational disturbance that they have been trying to work out ever since.
What they found was a planet made mostly of carbon, but at a density so great that only crystallized carbon could form - that, diamond.
"The evolutionary history and amazing density of the planet all suggest it is comprised of carbon -- i.e. a massive diamond orbiting a neutron star every two hours in an orbit so tight it would fit inside our own Sun," said Matthew Bailes of Swinburne University of Technology in Melbourne, Australia, lead author on the study.
The planet is actually the remains of a long dead star. Typically, pulsars start out as binary systems where two unevenly matched stars orbit around one another. One consumes the other while gaining energy and speed and eventually becomes a pulsar.
This diamond planet is thought to be half of one of those pairs, and has lost 99.9 percent of its original mass to the hungry pulsar.
But, perhaps becoming a giant diamond is fair reward for being consumed by your neighbor.
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