Diamonds may litter the surface of the planet orbiting closest to our sun. Those diamonds could have been forged by space rocks pummeling Mercury for billions of years. The planet's long history of being pelted by meteorites, comets and asteroids is clear from its cratered crust.
They are - Uranus and Neptune. These two worlds, while iconic for their blue-hazed appearance, are more than just eye-soothing colours. These two planets have conditions that could harden carbon atoms to such high extremes that they form diamonds.
Mercury's cratered surface may hold precious shards of diamonds. The glittering world may have formed from the billions of years of meteorite impacts that flash-baked Mercury's crust, reports Nikk Ogasa for Science News.
Distant 'hell planet' with diamond core is the victim of a gravitational catastrophe. The planet 55 Cancri e, also known as the "hell planet," appears to have been dragged closer to its sun's equator due to a gravitational anomaly.
This resulted in carbon and hydrogen atoms. Under pressure, the carbon turned into diamonds before their eyes. Based on these findings, the researchers believe it's likely that diamonds do indeed rain down on the planet Neptune.
While the diamonds created in the experiment are miniscule, the real diamond rain drops on Uranus and Neptune are predicted to be much larger - as much as millions of carats large.
Tidally locked hot Jupiter WASP-121b has an atmosphere so hot on one side that it breaks down water molecules and rains rubies and sapphires.
It's a magenta-colored planet! Named GJ 504b, the planet is made of pink gas. It's similar to Jupiter, a giant gas planet in our own solar system. But GJ 504b is four times more massive.
Scientists have found evidence of cubic zirconia in Moon rocks, showing that the universe not only holds diamonds, but its own fire-safe knock-offs. Space could be absolutely shimmering with precious stones, though Mao emphasizes that they probably aren't quite like the ones in earthlings' jewelry boxes.
There is an asteroid with a metal-composition that lurks around between Mars and Jupiter while orbiting the Sun and it is made up mainly of gold. Named 'Psyche 16', it was first discovered in 1852 by Italian astronomer Annibale de Gasparis and he named the asteroid after the Greek Goddess of Soul 'Psyche'.
NASA has taken a closer look at 55 Cancri e, an exoplanet that earned the nickname "diamond planet" due to research that suggests it has a carbon-rich composition. Even if we could reach these diamond exoplanets, they wouldn't be appealing places to visit.
In fact, the other gas giant, Jupiter is famed to be rather similar to Saturn in terms of diamonds hailing down. At the greatest depths of Jupiter's atmosphere, the conditions are so extreme that the gems may actually form oceans of liquid diamond.
In fact, this is what scientists have been searching for lately, and was proven through modern discoveries thanks to chemistry; the sky can rain diamonds on Saturn and Jupiter.
But if that doesn't sound painful enough, rain on Venus is made up of extremely corrosive sulphuric acid, which would severely burn any interstellar traveller's skin.
The Diamond Planet
The international team of astronomers who made the discovery told the journal Science that they believe the planet is slightly more massive than Jupiter but more than 20 times as dense.
About 900 light-years away, an ancient white dwarf star has cooled into a crystallized chunk of carbon — a diamond. But this isn't just any old diamond hiding in space: It's the size of Earth, and it's 11 billion years old.
A 2009 NASA mission—in which a rocket slammed into the moon and a second spacecraft studied the blast—revealed that the lunar surface contains an array of compounds, including gold, silver, and mercury, according to PBS.
Turns out it really is odd: Only about one in every 10 to 20 solar systems may harbor a similar moon. New observations made by NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope of stellar dust clouds suggest that moons like Earth's are—at most—in only 5 to 10 percent of planetary systems.
Diamond rain forms when hydrogen and carbon found in the interior of these planets are squeezed by the high pressure and form solid diamonds that sink slowly further into the interior. The research has been published in the journal Nature Astronomy.
The hidden planet is possibly lurking in our solar system, just waiting to be discovered. Planet Nine, the hypothetical ninth planet, may be orbiting out past Neptune, in or just past the Kuiper Belt. A new preprint suggests it's possible that—if it exists—Planet Nine may have collected some moons.
Pluto is shown in a rainbow of colors that distinguish the different regions on the planet. The left side of the planet is mostly blue-green with purple swirls, while the right side ranges from a vibrant yellow-green at the top to a reddish orange toward the bottom."
Weather and rains of molten glass
The weather on HD 189733b is deadly. The winds, composed of silicate particles, blow up to 8,700 kilometres per hour (5,400 mph). Observations of this planet have also found evidence that it rains molten glass, horizontally.
Researchers have discovered a new, exotic class of planets outside our solar system. These so-called super-Earths were formed at high temperatures close to their host star and contain high quantities of calcium, aluminium and their oxides -- including sapphire and ruby.
The strange weather was found in the 1st detailed study of the exoplanet's 'dark side. ' Imagine a world where the clouds are made of metal and liquid rubies and sapphires rain down from the sky. A new study shows that, on the hot Jupiter exoplanet WASP-121 b, this could be the reality.