A planet has been discovered in the constellation Serpens, which astronomers call a diamond planet. And for the first time this turned out to be not a journalistic canard.

The discovery of the diamond planet, the necessity of which science fiction writers have been talking about for so long, and which the pseudoscientific part of Russian journalism accomplished six months ago, has happened. This was done by a group of scientists led by Matthew Bailes from the Swinburne University of Technology in Australia.

Studying sky survey data from Australia's 64-meter Parkes radio telescope, scientists have detected short-period signals from a distant source. It turned out to be a millisecond pulsar - a rapidly rotating neutron star, distant from us at a distance of 4 thousand light years.

Radiopulse

Neutron stars are remnants of supernova explosions and are, as the name suggests, made of neutrons - electrically neutral particles. The diameter of neutron stars is usually 10-20 kilometers, and their mass is one and a half times the mass of the Sun. A rapidly rotating neutron star can be detected by detecting powerful radio emission emanating from it in two directions in the form of narrow beams. One of these rays slid across our planet and the Parkes radio telescope from the pulsar PSR J1719-1438, located in the constellation Serpens. Analysis of the radiation showed that the pulsation period is 5.7 milliseconds. This means that a neutron star manages to complete more than 10 thousand revolutions in one minute.

However, a more detailed analysis of the oscillations showed that the radio pulsations of the star are changed (modulated) by some incomprehensible process with a period of about two hours. It became clear that the neutron star does not rotate alone: ​​its movement is periodically deflected by an unknown satellite. Scientists have calculated that the objects are located quite close to each other, they are separated by only 600 thousand kilometers. The “dark horse” itself is small, it is only five times larger than the Earth. Based on deviations in the movement of the pulsar, scientists calculated that, despite its small radius, the companion is comparable in mass to Jupiter. "The planet's enormous density (22 g/cm3) gave us the key to understanding its nature," said Professor Bales.

The star was stripped to the planet

Scientists believe that the ultra-dense companion is all that remains of a once old star that rotated in tandem with a neutron star. The star, inflated at the end of its life, gave up most of its mass to the neutron star, spinning it to breakneck speed. “We know of several similar systems, called ultra-compact low-mass X-ray binaries, that evolve in a similar pattern, and appear to be precursors to systems such as PSR J1719-1438,” explained study co-author Andrea Possenti. However, in the case of PSR J1719-1438, the pulsar turned out to be so close to the unfortunate neighboring star that it stripped off not only it, but also the super-dense white dwarf that remained from it. Thus, what remained of a sun-like star was a carbon planet with the density of platinum and a mass of less than one tenth of one percent of its original mass.

She really is a diamond

Astronomers are pleased that for the first time they were able to discover a fundamentally new type of object in the Universe.

“PSR J1719-1438 showed that during the evolution of binary pulsars, special conditions can arise that cause stellar companions to turn into exotic planets, unlike anything else in the Universe. The chemical composition, pressure and size convince us that such objects are crystalline, that is, diamond,” concluded the authors of the study published in Science.

One of our closest exoplanets in the constellation Cancer, first discovered in 2004, has recently become the focus of attention of the Hubble, Spitzer space telescopes and major ground-based observatories. Thanks to new astronomical instruments and data analysis algorithms, it has now been possible to determine the presence and composition of its atmosphere. This is the first time such work has been done for super-Earth exoplanets.

The double star 55 Cancer has long attracted attention. It is visible in the sky with the naked eye, since it is located at a distance of only 40.9 light years from us and has a luminosity of 0.6 solar. The main star in this system belongs to the same main spectral class (GxV) as the Sun. Its mass is also close to that of the Sun, and at least five planets orbit around it. Each of them was detected by Doppler spectroscopy. The discovery of exoplanets was then confirmed using observations made at orbital and largest ground-based observatories.

Among all the exoplanets discovered around the Sun-like star, 55 Cancri e is currently attracting the most attention from astronomers. It's a carbon-heavy super-Earth. With a mass of 8.37 times that of the Earth and a radius of 2.17 times that of the Earth, conditions for intensive formation of diamonds should be created in its depths. According to primary estimates, their total volume exceeds the size of the Earth. Additional interest in the exoplanet was due to the fact that mathematical models predicted the presence of a dense atmosphere with a high probability of containing water vapor.

For a long time, attempts were made to confirm or refute these data, clarifying the parameters of the planet, its possible composition and origin. Since 2014, the most advanced instrument on the Hubble Space Telescope, the WFC3 camera, has been used for this purpose. However, observations in visible and near-infrared light made it possible to determine only regular transits of the exoplanet against the background of the parent star, without providing new information.

The researchers were helped by the favorable location of the exoplanet 55 Cancri e. Because it is 64 times closer to its star than the Earth is to the Sun, its year lasts only 18 hours and its surface heats up to 2000 K. Due to the intense heating, it glows in the mid-infrared. The IR luminosity, which is rare for planets, makes it possible to study it not only by means of observations in the optical range, but also by the equipment of the Spitzer orbital telescope.

Combined data collected by the Hubble and Spitzer space telescopes and ground-based observatories allowed researchers from University College London to judge the composition of the exoplanet's gas envelope. Methods of spectral analysis of chemical composition are widely used to study stars and the atmosphere of planets in the Solar System, but for the first time they turned out to be equally informative for a distant super-Earth.

Large amounts of hydrogen and helium were discovered in the atmosphere of exoplanet 55 Cancri e. It likely captured these light elements early on from a cloud of ionized gas during the formation of the local sun. Despite all the expectations and preliminary calculations, water vapor in the atmosphere of the exoplanet has not yet been detected, even in trace quantities.

Due to the intense heating by the star 55 Cancri A, the super-Earth's crust constantly melts during the day and barely has time to cool down overnight. With rising heat flows, carbon particles and its compounds, mainly inorganic, constantly enter the atmosphere. During various reactions, oxides, hydrogen cyanide (hydrogen cyanide vapor) and acetylene are mainly formed. The predominance of carbon monoxide over carbon dioxide indicates a high carbon to oxygen ratio.

“The presence of hydrogen cyanide and other molecules we discovered may be confirmed in a few years by the next generation of infrared telescopes. In this case, we will receive new evidence that this planet is extremely rich in carbon and, in general, very unusual,” comments one of the study’s authors, Jonathan Tennyson.

American scientists have found a diamond weighing several quadrillion carats. True, it is located far beyond the Earth, and is twice as large in size. The real one is in the constellation Cancer. To get there, a human life is not enough. But you can see and even touch unearthly diamonds in Siberia. Back in the era of dinosaurs, a diamond meteorite fell there. Perhaps this is a fragment of that same planet.

Astronomers from Yale University have been pointing their telescopes at the constellation Cancer for several years now. It is there, in the black depths of space, at a distance of 40 light years, which is difficult to even imagine, that the star “55 Kankri”, similar to our Sun, is located.

It would seem that there are 250 billion such flaming giants in our galaxy alone, what’s so special about that? There are five planets orbiting around, the last one was discovered in 2004, then it was given a name consisting of just one letter “E”. But not everything turned out to be so simple. Having studied the planet in more detail, scientists found that almost a third of it consists of diamonds.

“No one has yet seen this planet visually. It was discovered from the radial velocity curve and from the analysis of radio data. When the size of the companion and its mass, its density were determined, it turned out to be approximately equal to the density of carbon, approximately equal to the density of those that are now found on Earth.” ,” explained a researcher at the State Astronomical University named after P.K. Steinberg Evgeny Gorbovsky.

The size of the planet is also impressive - it is almost twice the size of Earth. Jewelry lovers will probably be offended, but people are unlikely to get their hands on this giant diamond in the foreseeable future.

The era of interstellar flights has not yet begun, and the climate of the planet is, to put it mildly, hostile. The temperature on the surface is more than two thousand degrees, the priceless block is located too close to the star. She is also a champion in orbital speed - a year there lasts only 18 hours.

“We have bad and good news regarding the study of such planetary systems. The good news is that just a decade ago we discovered a planet a year, now with the development of technology there are already hundreds. It’s sad that you can’t see a diamond planet with a regular optical telescope. That’s all.” research is being carried out using radio telescopes,” says Geoffrey Mercy, a professor of astronomy at the University of California.

However, it is possible to reach the inaccessible diamond planet, and in the literal sense of the word - with your hands. And not just anywhere, but... 35 million years ago, perhaps a fragment of it fell there, consisting of impactite diamonds. , but for industry, for example for the production of heavy-duty drilling rigs, this is a real godsend.

So those who laugh at bold plans to mine minerals, water, gold and other minerals from asteroids should think twice. At a minimum, truly cosmic wealth awaits the pioneers of such a space business.

According to experts, the concentration of carbon here is so high that it is recorded even in the upper layers of the atmosphere.

Scientists say WASP-12b is a classic hot Jupiter located very close to its star WASP-12. Because the planet is so close to its star, WASP-12b's surface is extremely hot, reaching approximately 2,250 degrees. The super-hot planet is 1.5 times larger in size than Jupiter (the largest planet in the Solar System), WASP-12b is located 40 times closer to its star than the Earth is to the Sun, so the planet rotates very quickly and its orbital period is slightly longer than the Earth’s day.

However, the main highlight of this amazing planet is that the carbon/oxygen ratio on this planet is more than one, that is, this planet is, figuratively speaking, a large piece of coal, but inside the planet the carbon is under enormous pressure. And as you know, under high pressure, carbon acquires a crystalline molecular lattice and becomes a diamond. Thus, scientists say that the core of WASP-12b is a huge diamond. Well, or graphite, as an alternative.

Most planets known today have a core of either silicon, molten metals (like Earth), or (more rarely) compressed hydrogen.

"This is completely new territory for us and it stimulates scientists to explore what the core of carbon-rich planets might be like," says study author Nikku Madhusudan, an astrophysicist at Princeton University in the US. He notes that WASP-12b is a hot Jupiter, that is, in fact, a gaseous planet. And if so, then it does not have a classic solid surface, like on Earth. It mostly consists of gases.

Scientists suggest that WASP-12b, like its star, formed in an unusual environment, extremely rich in carbon. It cannot be ruled out that there are other planets in the WASP-12 star system, possibly with a solid surface and possibly also rich in carbon. And there, scientists say, there could definitely be diamond cores.

However, WASP-12b is completely unsuitable for life. Even if you forget that the temperature here is more than 2000 degrees, there is very little oxygen and water here, but there is plenty of methane. Researchers say WASP-12b's unusual chemical composition became apparent from the first observations of the planet. Here, special scientific equipment recorded the spectrum left by elements such as methane, carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, ammonia and a small amount of water vapor.

The Princeton scientists say their previous theoretical models assumed that the ratio of carbon to oxygen on hot Jupiters should be no more than 0.5, but this planet breaks that model. Scientists here were also surprised by the complete absence of a stable stratosphere, usual for planets of this class.

Astronomers do not yet have an unambiguous interpretation regarding such a high temperature, but most are confident that there are two main reasons - firstly, the planet absorbs almost 100% of the thermal radiation directed by the star, and secondly, due to its proximity to the star, WASP-12b is hit by gigantic streams of radiation that warm the planets even more. The planet remains stable in such extreme conditions due to the fact that its structure is dominated by heavy elements and metals.

There are many amazing and amazing things in the Universe. There are cosmic raspberries, hypervelocity stars, a diamond planet and other amazing objects, which we will briefly discuss in this article. These space objects are unique in their kind and have very interesting and even incredible properties. So don’t close the article without finishing reading, because these objects are really a godsend for those interested in space topics.

Hypervelocity stars

Everyone should know that the shooting stars that earthlings see in the sky are actually meteors that enter our atmosphere. Only a minority know that real falling stars also exist, but they are somewhat different. They are also called hyperspeed. These objects are large fireballs of gas moving through space at incredible speed. Their speed reaches millions of km/h.

When a two-star system falls into a supermassive black hole, one star is swallowed by the black hole, while the other is thrown out of the galaxy at incredible speed.

Just imagine a huge ball of gas, four times the size of our Sun, rushing out of the galaxy at incredible speeds reaching millions of km/h.

Deadly Planet

Gliese 581 C is a planet orbiting a red dwarf star smaller than the Sun and with a luminosity of 1.3% relative to the Sun. This planet is not suitable for life.

Therefore, this object faces its star in the same way that the Moon faces the Earth. That is, only one side of the planet faces the star.

The point here is that if you were located on the illuminated side of the object, you would immediately burn, and if you were on the other side, you would suffer instant freezing. However, there is a certain middle ground here. Between these two sides there is a certain small strip, and it is there, according to the theory, that life can exist.

Castor star system

In the Universe you can find systems that have even more than two luminaries. An interesting example in this regard is the Castor system, which has as many as six luminaries. They rotate around a common center. This system has a very high luminosity.

There are three double stars in this system. Two of them are stars of spectral class A. The remaining stars are red dwarfs, that is, type M. All these stars are 52.4 times more luminous than the Sun.

Space raspberries and rum

In recent years, scientists have studied a cloud of dust near the center of the galaxy. Called Sagittarius B2, it tastes like raspberries and smells like rum. Everything is explained here: it contains a large amount of ethyl ester of formic acid, which gives the raspberry taste and smell of rum.

It was established that there are billions of liters of substance in this cloud, however, it cannot be drunk, because it also contains propyl cyanide. Scientists still cannot explain the mechanism of the emergence and distribution of such complex organic molecules in the cloud.

Planet made of hot ice

Above we described the Gliese star system. Let's touch on it again. After all, in this system there is another interesting peculiar planet called Gliese 436 B. Despite the fact that the temperature on it reaches 439 ° C, it is all made of ice. Unusual! Simply put, this is a kind of hot ice cube.

Here we should remember the planet Hoth from Star Wars. It’s just that she’s all covered in fire. Ice remains hard due to the huge amount of water on the planet. There is so much gravity there that water molecules cannot transform into steam.

Diamond Planet

There is another unique planet in the Universe. She is called "55 Cancer E". It all consists of diamond crystals. Imagine how much earthlings would rate it. There was a time when this planet was a star in a binary system. At some point, the second star began to absorb it, but it failed to absorb such a significant amount of carbon. As a result, an environment was formed there that was just suitable for the formation of diamonds: a large amount of carbon, a temperature of 1648 ° C and pressure. This planet differs from the Earth in that it is based on graphite, diamond and other silicate substances.

Cloud Himiko

Another interesting space object is the Himiko cloud. He can show us what it looked like 800 million years after the Big Bang. That is, this is exactly the object that shows us what galaxies approximately looked like in the early Universe. This cloud is striking in its size, because it is the most massive object in the early Universe. It is only half the size of our galaxy.

Himiko belongs to the so-called “era of reionization.” This period began approximately 200 million years after the Big Bang, and the end of this period dates back to one billion years after the explosion. This cloud represents the primary source of information that provides insight into the early stages of galaxy formation.

The largest reservoir

This object is located at a distance of 12 billion light years from our planet. This is the largest body of water in the known part of the Universe. It is located right in the center of the quasar, near a massive black hole. The water in it is 140 trillion. times more than on the entire Earth. Only the water there is not in a liquid state, but in a gas state. Consequently, the water there is some kind of massive gas cloud. The diameter of this cloud reaches several hundred light years.

The most powerful source of electricity

Scientists noticed an amazing phenomenon several years ago. There is a powerful source of electricity in space. Its power is 1018 amperes. This is comparable to one trillion lightning bolts. This lightning takes energy, as it turns out, from a giant black hole at the center of the galaxy. Its core is a huge relativistic jet.

It seems that the magnetic field of this black hole is so huge and strong that it can create lightning that travels a distance of over 150 thousand light years through cosmic gas and dust. This object is one and a half times larger than our galaxy. An incredible phenomenon!

A huge group of quasars

Well, finally, it’s worth talking about a huge group of quasars. It is known that our galaxy is only 100 thousand light years in diameter. This means that from one end to the other this or that event will take 100 thousand years.

This indicates that the phenomena that we are currently observing at the other end of the galaxy already occurred a long time ago, even at the time of the beginning of the formation of humans as a biological species. If you multiply this by another 40 thousand times, you get 4 billion light years. This will be the transverse size of the group of quasars, which is the largest cluster, consisting of 74 quasars.

In standard physics, this group is presented as an exception to the rule. After all, according to these rules, the maximum size of any object does not, as a rule, exceed 1.2 billion light years.

Scientists do not yet know how this huge structure was formed. All structures previously known to science are many times smaller than this giant; they only reach a diameter of several hundred million light years.

Conclusion

Here is an interesting dozen of amazing space phenomena. Interesting, isn't it? Of course, many questions arise: where do they come from with such fantastic properties and capabilities? How much do we not know? What else amazingly hides in those endless expanses of space? What else remains to be learned by humanity is unknown. Surely, you also ask similar questions, and maybe there are already answers to some of them?