Neptune and Uranus May Have Oceans of Liquid Diamond
Future humans don't have to wait to travel to Pandora for the chance of mining unobtanium, because Neptune and Uranus may have diamond icebergs floating atop liquid diamond seas closer to home. The surprise finding comes from the first detailed measurements of the melting point of diamond, Discovery News reports. Scientists zapped diamond with a laser at pressures 40 million times greater than the Earth's atmosphere at sea level, and then slowly reduced both temperature and pressure. They eventually found that diamond behaves like water during freezing and melting, and that chunks of diamond will float in the liquid diamond. Related ArticlesInside Sofia, NASA's Airplane-Mounted TelescopeNASA Awards Contract for a Methane-Powered Balloon to Explore Saturn's MoonA Boat to Sail the Methane Lakes of TitanTagsScience, Jeremy Hsu, carbon, diamond icebergs, diamonds, liquid diamonds, neptune, oceans, uranus Diamond oceans could explain why the magnetic fields of Uranus and Neptune appear tilted so far off their...