Diamonds in Sudan Meteorite 'Are Remnants of Lost Planet' (theguardian.com) 43
Diamonds found in a meteorite that exploded over the Nubian desert in Sudan a decade ago were formed deep inside a "lost planet" that once circled the sun in the early solar system, scientists say. From a report: Microscopic analyses of the meteorite's tiny diamonds revealed they contain compounds that are produced under intense pressure, suggesting the diamonds formed far beneath the surface of a planet. In this case, the mysterious world was calculated to be somewhere between Mercury and Mars in size. Astronomers have long hypothesised that dozens of fledgling planets, ranging in size from the moon to Mars, formed in the first 10m years of the solar system and were broken apart and repackaged in violent collisions that ultimately created the terrestrial planets that orbit the sun today.
Nibiru? (Score:1)
Re: Sedna? (Score:2)
Krypton?
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Re: Nibiru? (Score:3)
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My understanding is that due to Jupiter's gravity, there never was a planet there. Also the reason that Mars is on the small side.
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My understanding is that astrophysicists hugely dislike catastrophic system models. So hypothesis based around recent major impacts are shunned. So anything like a planet being struck and knocked out of orbit and losing its moon and in passage affecting the orbits of other planetary bodies would be pathologically avoided because it if could happen reality recently in the past millions of years it could happen again and they really hate mentioning that. Even when quoting odds on free flying planets or stars,
Re:Ummmm ... (Score:5, Informative)
According to TFA, these diamonds contain an iron-sulphur compound that forms at 20 gigapascals. Regular diamonds can form at 3.5-4.5 gigapascals.
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Also, traces of Illudium Pu-36.
Krypton (Score:2)
Diamonds from the planet Krypton have great value and special powers.
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Re: Krypton (Score:3)
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Re:Kardashian (Score:5, Informative)
If you read the article, it mentions that the diamonds are up to 100 micrometers across. Human hair diameter ranges from 17 to 181 micrometers, so these diamonds are roughly as big across as the thickness of a human hair. What they're describing is more appropriately used for industrial abrasive than as gems.
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So it'll go into glitter instead :-p
Re: Kardashian (Score:2)
Speculation (Score:4, Insightful)
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Couldn't the meteorite just be part of the Earth that was knocked loose when a huge rock smashed into and created the moon?
Mars meteorites are determined because their oxygen isotope ratios match that found on Mars and don't match that normally found on Earth. If the isotope ratios in these meteorites (perhaps of carbon since we talking about diamonds) are atypical of Earth then it stands to reason they came from somewhere else. It could still have come from the collision that created the Moon though. The object that hit the Earth is thought to have been about the size of Mars.
Lost Planet (Score:5, Funny)
Anyone who has lost a planet within the past 4 billion years should please contact lost and found, and provide a description of the missing planet.
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Could that planet be... Forbidden?
I don't know, but you could ask around. I heard this guy named 'Robby' is pretty smart, and can whip up batches of whiskey quickly as well. I think he works as a PA for some eccentric dude and his daughter that the father has has jealousy and possessiveness issues with.
Strat
Diamonds are a girl's best friend (Score:3)
Especially when they're alien diamonds coming down in a rain of fire from the sky
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Wow, great sense of humor. You pick up a lot of women with that amazing wit?
This is /. What do you think?!
Planet? (Score:4, Funny)
Oh crap... (Score:1)
So I was watching one of those Babylonian Ancient Aliens videos on Youtube, to kill time, and they started talking about this extra planet in our solar system that apparently held a more advanced race and were seen as Gods according to some ancient Babylonian manuscripts / legends. Three weeks after laughing that one off I come to read this. Expect the Ancient Aliens community to go nuts :/
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our early solar system had a large amount of those, not just one. a lot of them are still around, further away after Jupiter flung them out. others shredded. still that would be long before multicellular life on earth came around
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our early solar system had a large amount of those, not just one. a lot of them are still around, further away after Jupiter flung them out. others shredded. still that would be long before multicellular life on earth came around
And some are still around. Some planetary scientists say that the large rocky moons of Jupiter and Saturn were originally inner orbit planets that were captured during the Grand Tack.
Here's an overview:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
I find the brilliance of our scientific community (Score:1)
Its original target was Nigeria (Score:2)
Studies show that the meteorite was aiming for Nigeria instead of Sudan, in an interplanetary effort to release a certain prince and allow him to recover his billion dollar financial empire.
It seems the email hoax is more widespread than we thought.