Mercury has an 11-mile thick diamond layer between its core and mantle

Skye Jacobs

Posts: 285   +7
Staff
In brief: Mercury is the smallest planet in the solar system and has always been a mystery due to its dark surface and high core density. However, astronomers have long known that its surface contains significant amounts of graphite, a form of carbon. A new reveals that a thick diamond layer lies beneath that graphite crust at its core-mantle boundary.

Scientists from China and Belgium recently published a study in Nature Communications that proposes the existence of a diamond layer at Mercury's core-mantle boundary. It suggests this layer is up to 18 kilometers (11 miles) thick. The finding represents a significant advance in understanding planetary differentiation processes – how planets develop distinct internal layers.

The scientists believe the diamond layer formed due to the crystallization of Mercury's carbon-rich magma ocean. As the planet cooled, this carbon formed a graphite crust on the surface. However, the study challenges the assumption that graphite was the only stable carbon phase during this period.

"Many years ago, I noticed that Mercury's extremely high carbon content might have significant implications," the study's co-author, Dr. Yanhao Lin, from the Center for High Pressure Science and Technology Advanced Research in Beijing told Phys.org. "It made me realize that something special probably happened within its interior."

The researchers used high-pressure and temperature experiments combined with thermodynamic modeling to recreate the conditions of Mercury's interior. They achieved pressure levels up to 7 Giga Pascals, allowing them to study the equilibrium phases of Mercury's minerals.

They determined that the presence of sulfur in Mercury's iron core affected the crystallization process of the magma ocean. Sulfur lowers the liquidus temperature, facilitating the formation of a diamond layer at the core-mantle boundary. It also formed an iron sulfide layer, influencing the carbon content during planetary differentiation.

The diamond layer's high thermal conductivity impacts Mercury's thermal dynamics and magnetic field generation. The diamond layer helps transfer heat from the core to the mantle, affecting temperature gradients and convection in the liquid outer core, influencing the magnetic field.

The findings also have implications for understanding other carbon-rich exoplanetary systems and terrestrial planets with similar sizes and compositions to Mercury. The processes observed on Mercury might also occur on other planets, potentially leaving similar signatures. The study concludes that similar diamond layers could exist in other terrestrial planets, though the conditions must be exactly right.

Permalink to story:

 
If this doesn't give a big boost to space exploitation (in a good way), nothing will! Maybe this is precisely the thing that will boost the badly needed rocket development funding.
 
If this doesn't give a big boost to space exploitation (in a good way), nothing will! Maybe this is precisely the thing that will boost the badly needed rocket development funding.
I don't think we'll be mining diamond from several kilometers deep in Mercury's mantle any time soon. However, pretty much any element or resource on Earth is available in far larger quantities elsewhere in the solar system. With even a rudimentary industrial base in space, there's no reason the Earth couldn't support a population ten or twenty times higher than what it is today.
 
Watch somehow DeBeers Diamond company will say they own the rights to it. LOL
pressurized carbon, NOT rare, but they only trickle out a few diamonds per year to keep the price HIGH.

Was going to post the same thing.

Anyway less than a snowball's chance in hell we'll ever be mining Mercury's surface let alone drilling down to reach the diamond layer. Humanity will cease to exist long before we had such capability which would probably be 200-300 years way I reckon
 
Because Mercury is so close to the Sun, it will take a lot of delta-V to get there. But after Mars, Mercury and Pluto are really the only two planets on which an astronaut could walk in a space suit. For Mercury, it would be necessary to land during the night-time, because it would be easy to heat the ground to a tolerable level, and radiation shielding would be less of a problem.
 
Because Mercury is so close to the Sun, it will take a lot of delta-V to get there.
It takes less delta-V to get from LEO (low earth orbit) to Mercury than it does to get from the ground to LEO. As the old saying goes, "once you're in orbit, you're halfway to anywhere in the solar system."
 
A NEW WHAT????
"A new reveals that a thick diamond layer lies beneath that graphite crust at its core-mantle boundary."
 
Apparently, scientists are never sure. For example, now they say diamonds are not formed from coal and dismissing what we were taught in school as 'old wives tale'. So making a statement about diamonds on mercury...? Just another way to stay in the limelight.
 
Apparently, scientists are never sure...
Of course-- because science is a process of continual questioning, not an end result. But there are still many things we're very confident about.

For example, now they say diamonds are not formed from coal and dismissing what we were taught in school as 'old wives tale'.
That theory came from Superman comics of him squeezing a lump of coal. Geologists have known about kimberlite pipes and the igneous origins of diamonds since at least the 1940s.

So making a statement about diamonds on mercury...? Just another way to stay in the limelight.
So you believe this is simply a fabrication to gain attention? /smh.
 
Back