Astronomers at the Swinburne University of Technology in Melbourne have discovered a new planet approximately 4000 light years away from Earth, which is extremely dense and consists largely of carbon.
“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.
The planet is orbiting around a pulsar, lovingly known as J1719-1438, which has a diameter of just 20km. But spinning at 10,000 rpm, this pulsar has a mass 1.4 times that of our sun. The accompanying planet orbits this pulsar in 2 hours and 10 minutes, at a radius of 600,000kms, about the same as our sun.
This planet is estimated to be 60,000kms in radius, about 5 times that of Earth, which, while not as large as Jupiter, has a mass slightly more than Jupiter. Astronomers say that if the planet were any larger, it would have been ripped apart by the pulsar’s gravitational force. Due to it’s density, the planet is believed to have a crystalline formation of carbon, i.e. diamond.
However, just because it’s made up of dense carbon doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s a diamond. ”In terms of what it would look like, I don’t know I could even speculate,” said Benjamin Stappers of the University of Manchester. “I don’t imagine that a picture of a very shiny object is what we’re looking at here.”
About Taimoor HafeezFrom auditing to editing, I now test and analyze the latest gadgets and games instead of the latest financial statements. Both jobs are equally intense and rewarding. In my free time you'll find me raiding in WoW or engineering in TF2.
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