PexelsUranus is the butt of more than a few jokes but it looks like the ice planet might be having the last laugh after this latest scientific discovery.
Turns out, it almost certainly rains diamonds on Uranus – presumably making it the ideal place to shoot rap videos.
Well maybe not ideal, as you’d 100% die.
NASABasically the centre of Uranus is a very inhospitable place – even though we call it an ice giant, it’s actually bloody hot and the pressures are so high, hydrogen and carbon will be transformed into diamonds.
I’m no scientist but we’re all made of carbon and hydrogen so presumably if you tried to harvest these diamonds you actually be turned into diamonds.
Kind of like that Greek chap who could turn everything into gold and even though he thought it was going to be great it was actually rubbish.
PixabayDominik Kraus, scientist at Helmholtz Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf and lead author of a study into space diamonds spoke to the Guardian about recreating high-temperatures and pressures using lasers to finally prove the theory that Uranus has a diamond centre:
Previously, researchers could only assume the diamonds had formed but we saw this very clear signature of diamonds
Scientists believe the diamonds on Uranus are actually super massive, growing over thousands of years to weigh millions of carats.
For context, the largest diamond on earth weighs 3,106.75 carats.
NASAIt’s kind of incredible to think just how hugely and unimaginably different other planets are to our own.
Thinking about Uranus’s huge diamonds kind of makes you feel small in the universe – also poor, so, so poor.
