New scientific research has revealed that huge diamonds develop in the centre of Neptune and Uranus. The diamonds are created as extreme pressure pushes carbon atoms together before hydrocarbons sink through the planet's slushy interior and gather on the central core. German researchers used a high-powered laser to create shock waves in polystyrene- made from hydrogen and carbon- to recreate the pressure found on the planets.
Scientists at the Hemlholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf laboratory found that almost every atom was incorporated into microscopic diamond structures measuring just a few nanometres wide. Eventhough the structures last mere seconds, the breakthrough is seen as proof of the diamond rain theory.
“This [condition] will generate diamond precipitation inside such celestial bodies,” Dominik Kraus, a researcher with Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf in Dresden and author on the paper told Gizmodo in an email. “This means that there is not necessarily a pure diamond core but certainly a large diamond envelope around the rocky cores that are supposed to exist inside Neptune and Uranus.”
“If the temperature is high enough close to the core (some calculations predict that) it could also be ‘oceans of liquid carbon’ with gigantic ‘diamond icebergs, swimming on top of it,” said Kraus. “But most theories suggest that diamond would remain solid, at least inside Neptune and Uranus, but this may be different for some exoplanets.”
