New Planet

Newly Discovered Planet Appears to Be All Diamond

  • First Posted: Aug 26 2011 13:20 PM
  • Updated: about 1 hour ago

Too bad it wasn’t ready on time for Kim Kardashian’s wedding.

Only four thousand light years away, a tiny, diamond planet is orbiting a neutron star. That’s practically in our backyard! The newly discovered planet, officially recorded in the journal Science this week, is the densest one we know: It’s small enough that its entire orbit could fit inside the sun, but it has a mass roughly equal to Jupiter’s. The planet appears to be made largely of carbon, though it may also contain oxygen. Experts believe it is basically the leftovers from a much larger star that lost its outer layer by orbiting a pulsar star. The British Museum has yet to claim it as an exhibit.

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