Scientists have discovered that Mercury has a layer of hard diamond

Origin of diamonds

Scientist Yanhao Lin of the Advanced Research Center for High-Pressure Science and Technology in Beijing and one of the study’s co-authors said the key to the solution he found was the high carbon content in Mercury, which told him that “probably something special had happened inside him.”

Mercury It formed, like the other planets, after a sea of ​​magma, which in its case was probably rich in carbon and silicate, cooled. The metals coagulated near the center, and the remaining magma formed the middle mantle and outer crust.

It was originally thought that the carbon, being lighter than the average mantle, formed graphite under pressure and temperature and then floated to the surface. A more recent study has shown that the mantle is thicker than previously thought, so the pressure may be enough to compress the carbon within it. diamonds.

A wonderful discovery

To test this possibility, a group of scientists simulated the conditions of formation Mercury, and applied pressure to the magma 70 thousand times greater than Earth’s and a temperature of almost 2000 ºC.

Computational models that analyzed the experimental results showed that under the conditions studied, the appearance of a layer is possible diamonds in the core of the mantle, about 15 kilometers wide.

Unfortunately for those thinking about extracting them, this is impossible. The gemstone layer is located at a depth of more than 480 kilometers, not to mention the extreme temperatures Mercury. However diamonds They are important because they can explain the existence of this planet’s magnetic field.

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diamonds They may help transfer heat between the core and mantle, which would create a temperature difference and cause the liquid iron to swirl, thereby creating a magnetic field, Lin explained.