Small ‘diamond planet’ is discovered in our galaxy

August 18, 2011
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An international team of scientists announced that a new planet was discovered, composed of carbon and high density in the Milky Way i.e. in our own galaxy.

The scientists hypothesize that “it is the densest planet ever discovered” and that “appears to be smaller than Jupiter but has more mass.”

As it was reported in the U.S. magazine Science, the planet lies in the constellation Serpents to only four thousand light years from Earth, which, in astronomical terms, is not that far.

This planet has particular physical characteristics as its composition is primarily carbon and its density is extremely high, which are also diamonds attributes.

Matthew Bailes, a researcher at the Center for Astrophysics in Melbourne, Australia, explained that “There is sufficient evidence to affirm that the planet is 18 times the density of water. That means it can not be made up of gases such as hydrogen or helium, as most of the stars. Rather it should be made of heavier elements like carbon and oxygen, hence its crystalline nature, like diamonds.”

The planet revolves around a star that also has high density, and together they form a binary structure called by astronomers ‘pulsar’, which in less specialized terms may be explained as a small solar system formed by only one star and one planet that share a high-density magnetic field and whose orbital speed is extremely fast.”

The planet is five times larger than Earth and might have previously been a star, but for the moment has no name.