Neptune and Uranus May Have Oceans of Liquid Diamond

Yeah it's called Salvage. Why we don't have mining operations on the moons of Saturn, or OUR moon is beyond me.

There is money to be made in space? Really? All I can say is uhhh Duh? If this turns out to be true, I hope this can be the catalyst for more investments for space exploration / research.

This is pretty cool , but I thought a diamond was like a crystal and so I would have thought in liquid form it would no longer be a crystal would it , just a liquid pool of carbon somehow but not a diamond . is it truely possible ?

Steve28

Almost anything can exist in a liquid form. You just have to provide enough pressure/heat, etc.

Rock normally isn't a liquid, but magma is liquid rock, correct? Diamond shouldn't be any different. It may be the hardest substance known to man, but that doesn't mean it's THE hardest element period. With enough pressure and force, you can make the entire mass of Mt. Everest fit into the palm of your hand. It's called a Black hole. So strong, not even light particles can escape it. I'm sure there's enough pressure/force out there to cause diamond to liquefy.

rpenri -

I think the real issue isn't necessarily enough heat, it's the perfect amount of heat. Too much heat or pressure would break the bonds that form the lattice structure that carbon chains use to form diamonds.

I think the real important thing here is the equilibrium that has formed. Just like H20 exists on our planet as ice in oceans of liquid water, a liquid diamond structure could exist with diamond chunks floating along the surface.

Just like a droplet of water is not a single water molecule, but a collection of them connected through weak molecular bonds.

As clarification, what does "liquid diamond" mean? A diamond is defined as a carbon crystal. Carbon isn't exactly precious. We're made of it, and so is the graphite in all our pencils. Finding liquid graphite doesn't sound nearly as good as finding liquid diamond, but is there any tangible difference between the two?

SteveMcQwark-

I think that's kind of what bjkilby was trying to get at with "the perfect amount of heat", etc. I would seem that just as Earth's planetary conditions are correct to sustain life as we know it without killing us, Neptune's planetary conditions are correct to maintain diamonds as we know them without completely breaking it down into its elementary state.

Has anyone stopped to think that our diamond market is strictly governed in order to maintain material value? Even if we were able to harvest the possible diamonds on these planets and get them home, all we would be doing is devaluing diamonds for everyone landing us back in the same boat of having to find a way to fund future missions. I love popsci, but the authors of some of the articles seem to get caught up on possibilities and forget about reality.

"I love popsci, but the authors of some of the articles seem to get caught up on possibilities and forget about reality."

The reality is that they burn diamonds for heat in the Ekati mines in Canada to keep the price up on the street, but it doesn't matter.

The reality is also that diamond has better thermal properties than silicon, allowing it to be made into smaller microprocessors than silicon can remain useful at. Silicon and carbon share many physical properties, have the same number of valence electrons, and diamond microprocessors are the future of Moore's Law. Being able to manufacture entire circuit boards out of man made diamond pits 1 billion computer users and the drive of the global human data network against the De Beers cartel. In 2020, the revenue of Google alone will dwarf that of all the diamond cartels in the world, combined. Never mind the rest of us.

The value of diamonds is no longer purely sentimental. At this point, we're all in the game. Planet full of diamond ice? You can bet that's worth a robot mining fleet.

Oh calm down kajuroe, it was just a closing sentence to entice people about the possibilities in our universe. Besides, you really think American women would want crappy "Earth diamonds" for a wedding band when they could make hubby buy one from Neptune for 1000% more $$$. Do you really think they would cost the same just because it's the same element?! We would so exploit that opportunity... That's the reality.

As a few commentors have already pointed out, a diamond ain't a diamond if it's liquid. It's just a big ocean of liquid carbon with chunks of diamond. I think everyone missed the most interesting point in the article, that diamond acts like water when it freezes.
Something's confusing about this diamond making process (not that I know much about it) but don't we usually make diamonds by pressurizing solid carbon? Adding heat and pressure? This ocean of liquid must cool in order to crystallize. anyway...
Are they really sure that liquid carbon is more dense than its diamond cousin?! Diamonds float on liquid carbon? To me that's unbelievable!

Kajoure you make the best point here - diamond's aren't worth anything to anyone except materialistic wives and cartels. Why would anyone spend all the money to make a mining operation on such a far away planet for a substance that's worth so little here, that we have an abundance of (if you can reach it) on this planet!

I understand the confusion about the idea of liquid diamond since diamond refers to a specific organization of carbon. But this is probably a context in which it makes sense to speak of liquid diamond, and that under the pressure and circumstance, when the liquid hardens, it will become a specific organization of carbon, namely diamond. If the circumstances were such that the transition was consistently from liquid to graphite (if such a physical context could exist), then it would make sense to call it liquid graphite.

I could only assume there's diamonds in/on Neptune closer to the mantle there's plenty on carbon from methane and plenty of pressure.

You mean I can buy a rock from Uranus?

Considering that the temperatures and pressures on Uranus and Neptune are extreme enough to regularly melt and recrystallize diamond, exactly what substances do we plan on using to make the machinery that would harvest the diamond? Even if we know of some that could withstand the environment, I highly doubt that we're close to mass producing it. And, as other people have mentioned, harvesting it would essentially just be like printing off a ton of money and calling ourselves richer.

chipper89: And as I have stated (and will again) There's absolutely no way you can tell me the price of carbon from either of those planets would be of equivalent value to carbon on Earth. In diamond form or not.
We also have plenty of volcanic rock on Earth that's the exact same chemically as rocks from the moon. You're saying I could buy a rock from the moon and it will cost the same to just buy one here? NO. The work and danger that goes into obtaining such things would raise the price considerably, guaranteed.

I think Earth has plenty of diamonds already and there is no need to get more from another planet.

The "unobtanium" shown in Avatar movie looked like a natural room temperature super-conductor to me (floating in air when placed over a magnet), which is the Holy Grail of the solid-state physics today.

If something like that really discovered someday, and if it is really hard to produce artificially in high amounts (kind of like Diamond), and also if it is naturally exists on another planet/moon/asteroid in the solar system, (yes, lots of Ifs), then it would make sense to mine it, even w/ really high costs.

Chipper89

There's a firm in Boston that is producing man-made diamonds. The diamond industry is calling these man-made diamonds "fake" or "man-made" as if saying so makes them any less of a diamond than ones pulled from mines in Africa at the cost of human lives and suffering. The fact is, chemically, they're virtually the same. Yet, why is the one that has been manufactured cheaper than a "natural" one?

Because people believe somehow that they're different, even when they're not. People are foolish, and that's due in large part to the marketing of diamond merchants as well as the ignorance on the part of consumers (how many are going to tell their wife/fianceé that they bought them a "manufactured" diamond?).

The point is, people are stupid. And if they're willing to buy a rock from Uranus or Neptune at a 5000% premium, who is going to deny them?

the diamands would propbleably ether be a very hight carat or a vey low one because of all the liqued form of it

could this solve our economic crisis?!!?!??!?!?!

Commercial exploration of space would definitely solve a lot of economic problems. Jobs of all kinds would be created. Designing space ports, space ships, space suits for engineers. Building the above for tradesmen. Support for all of them for the unskilled. Of course that would cause a jump forward for renewable energy sources, and all that goes with it. Makes you wonder why we are not doing that now. Finding just 1 new element in space could do it. But no one is looking.

Please correct me if I was improperly educated but aren't diamonds just highly compressed carbon? Which should mean that it would be oceans of high heat high pressure carbon pools that cool at random to make the diamond glaciers?

That is awesome.You would never think that 1 day you will be having space-imported diamonds.

If any of you have seen Avatar, you can guess we are the evil ones who pillage other worlds....the green movement will go nuts over this....we can't go mine other worlds....are you kidding? we can't even hardly take care of ourselves anymore b/c of all the new regulations coming down the pike with Obamao and the EPA!!!

They are saying, the scientists won't know for sure, if Neptune and Uranus have diamond icebergs, until they can launch missions to the planets. Let's hope that, the cost of trying to launch missions to the planets won't be more then the value of diamond icebergs. :) Good luck to NASA and to the tax payers :)

www.sirketarama.com

Maaan, the Debeers family is going to fight this tooth and nail, unless of course they can control it. :-P

I like saintx's point that, if there's a practical value to be had to diamonds for microprocessors, which in our computer-dominated world, we have to consider, and if we can mine diamonds out of the liquid diamond sea on Neptune, then yes, it's certainly worth figuring out how to get there. On the other hand, I think we're a few steps away from where we are today and sending robot mining ships to Neptune to go collect diamonds. As was pointed out, there are resources to be mined from the moon, and we aren't even doing that yet, so we need to figure out what resources we can mine from the moon and bring back to Earth to use in commercial applications, and then once we've set that up, then we can move to mining on Mars, the moons of Saturn, and then finally to Neptune. And if a private company wants to fund the mining operation, maybe even set up a mining colony on the moon, then by all means, let's do it!

wow.

i love how many of the commenters seem to think extraterrestrial diamond mining could be right around the corner.

we don't have the technology or the money to even send a *probe* to check if they're there, not to mention extracting a useful amount, and rocketing back to earth... what, 3 years later? and how much rocket fuel would that take -- overcoming the gravity of a gas giant? not to mention the terrific pressure and insane winds.

hilarious. yeah, keep citing Avatar. omg.

If we had the technology to "mine" these diamonds, we would have the technology to create the same temperatures and pressures and create the diamonds ourselves - and they would be cheaper than going to Neptune.

It is a bit like spices. Pepper was once extremely valuable in Europe, because it grew a long way away and travelled via many middle-men. When navigators travelled directly to the source, only the first few became rich: the price of pepper fell to represent the reduced cost of getting it. It was still expensive, because the journey was long and dangerous. But as the journey became safer with improved shipping technology, all that happened was that the price fell to the point where pepper is now an ordinary supermarket commodity.

And to those expecting economic growth: diamond is a store or symbol of value, not value in itself. If you mined it on the basis of its value before you opened the mine, you would be making the same mistake Spain made in the 17th 18th centuries. Despite importing colossal amounts of silver from the Americas, it went bankrupt seven times. Because there were no more real goods to buy, as more silver was imported the value of silver fell steadily. Massive efforts were expended mining and transporting silver, but because it had no net value this effort was, on a macroeconomic scale, wasted.

There are also minerals that you want to keep the cost low. It might not be feasible to(find a way to) mine Uranus, but finding more evidence of floating diamond icebergs can mean there are other precious/semi precious and non-naturally occurring(on earth) minerals on other planets.It would be a great shift or split in the space industry from exploration to commercialization. I for one would love that because eventually commercialization will require more exploration.

Even if we don't see actual results in our or our childrens' lifetime it is definitely worth it. Everything has to start somewhere.

p.s.
Am I the only one who's interested in diamond behaving like water at certain conditions?

Another Arthur C. Clarke prediction on the verge of becoming reality.

Woohoo! See which country will be the first to reach the "GOAL!"

I live on one of the icebergs. :) who knew i could have wifi here.

LIQUID DIAMONDS, MWA HA HA HAAAAAAA!!! Just what I need to complete the Epic Super Diamond Focusing Lazer Beam

Yeah... get enough fuel and supplies to get a crew and gear out to Uranus in the hopes of mining diamonds in a 30+ the gravity of earth and then get enough fuel to launch the mined diamonds back to earth for a 7-12 year (probably longer) round trip??? Sorry but diamonds aren't worth that much on the street.

What did you guys smoke today???

"Liquid diamond"?!
don't you mean liquid carbon?

You're right. We don't have the technology to mine diamonds from Neptune. We're not even close. It's all about baby steps. Let's set up mining operations on the moon first, then we'll mine on Mars, then the asteroids, then the moons of Jupiter and Saturn, and eventually, we'll get to Neptune. ;-)

In my opinion a liquid diamond is still diamond. A diamond is not pure carbon but is mostly carbon. If you heat up glass (also mostly carbon) it becomes liquid glass. If you called liquid glass liquid carbon and attempted to correct everyone in your oh so pompous way they would look at you like your dumb.

It's the journey not the destination. ;)

we are going to need something awesome to withstand the heat and pressure necessary to create liquid diamond. i think it would be more liquid hydrocarbon than liquid carbon. but we need a stargate to keep down shipping expenses. you know these planets can't sustain human life, we would need advanced propulsion systems to carry the payload. and how does anyone expect our electronics to hold up in a sea of molten diamond.
well, if it were achieved, by the miracles of modern science, high=tech ceramics, etc.. then send your droids equipped with their ceramic heatsinking armor, ceramic molds for crafting diamond goods.. ok heres a bad idea: a diamond chain. heres a good idea: a diamond sword, diamond knives, diamond shuriken, diamond suit-of-armor, diamond bullets. not because any of these things would be necessarily more durable than the same thing made out of metal alloys, because they would most likely be brittle, but because when life gives you liquid diamond, make diamondade. when diamonds are as plentiful as oceanwater, and in a liquid state, why not mold them into things that we couldn't dream of creating on earth, out of natural diamond, for sale to the rich people who want random things made out of diamond.. diamond rims for your diamond motorcycle.. we could mold anything out of diamond. mass produced diamond heatsinks, and other cool novelty items, like diamond injected with steel, or gold, or any other metal. that would look awesome. a precious metal encased in a precious nonmetal. aside from the supply and demand issue that would seem to drive down the price of diamonds, the billions of dollars spent on retrieving the diamonds would at least drive up the price of the first shipments, but to mold swords and other novelty items out of diamond, you would have something that will sell for more than an ordinary diamond of its weight. a diamond suit of armor.. would look awesome. some really rich person might want a diamond suit of armor though, because it would just look awesome. Just imagine the energy released by striking the tip of a diamond iceberg with Thor's hammer.. ok i dont really know if diamonds have a piezoelectric effect. but the point is, diamond being a plentiful resource would lead to diamond being more often used for its properties. cutting/abrasives? been there done that, but heatsinking with diamond is a pretty expensive application, unless the diamond market is flooded/you know where to get diamond. and if you have a diamond ocean, you have a source. and you can make lots of pointless or useful things, as easy as making a popsicle. diamond bowling ball, diamond 'crystal skull', diamond beer-cozy, diamond grinding-wheel, now thats useful.
somebody said they burn diamonds in canada..
i dont know whether to take them seriously.. you'd have to supply alot of oxygen to burn diamonds, but i thought i saw diamonds floating on the lava when you throw them in a volcano?
burning them is a dumb idea though, they should just hide them if they want to keep the supply low.
if i had a 5 pound bag of sugar.. how small of a diamond would i be able to make out of that, or would that experiment go BOOM because of the watervapor and oxygen that would be released?
yea ok imdone

@hypnometal
that's the point
CIVILIANS will eventually get there by themselves! LOL

How big are the so called diamonds.Big as my fist or small as a dust might.

don'tcallmechief:

glass is already a liquid, "molten" glass is just faster-moving. diamond is a particular crystalline structure; without that structure it can no longer be called "diamond," and melting it destroys that structure.

but you're right; some posters are pompous.

Maybe now EVE Online will be more attainable.

Diamonds would be worthless if they could be mined & transported back to Earth from Uranus!!!
Doesn't anyone know that DeBeers controls diamond prices by withholding them from the public? DeBeers already has enough diamonds stockpiled to make them valueless if the world market were flooded!

Here, let me guess about the NASA method for harvesting considering that little escapade with bombing the moon "in search of water:" Cause several rounds of nuclear explosions in the "diamond sea" and have satellite 'bots go around collecting the projectile particles as whatever atmosphere exists on Neptune and Uranus is virtually destroyed; that is unless the 'bots get destroyed in the process. Is that a good bonehead idea, NASA?

lol Hey steve to answer your question like diamon gold has a liquid form and since gold is a crystaline structure like diamond it does have a liquid form

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Eh, liquid diamond, liquid graphite - it's still a valuable resource, is it not? It may not even be a true liquid, as liquid could refer to being a viscuous solid. IF that's the case, then we could use that for an amazing amount of things (provided we could invent something to keep it at the correct temperature and then make sure that tech isn't horrendously bulky).

Not all diamonds are white ones. The most valuable ones are the colored - it's probably one of the reasons that the planets are blue.

@ dontcallmechief,
Glass is primarily silicon, not carbon.

Half the people commenting here don't have a clue what they are talking about.

@ rpenri and highdobb: I understand that people would pay more for "space diamonds" than regular ones, but the problem is that the cost of building ships, flying all the way out there, harvesting this stuff in a brutal environment, and flying back can't be covered by a market of rich people willing to pay a "5000% premium", because that market is tiny. There's not enough people with the means of paying for them. So the prices would have to be lowered to fit within the budgets of more people. We could harvest as much or as little as we like, but unless we make some magnificent discovery that makes the cost of space travel a mere fraction of what it is today, we can't possibly gain money from this.

What is interesting to me is the possibilities this discovery raises for new materials that include carbons useful properties. If properly researched this should lead to some very exciting materials. Imagine applications in construction of both earth-bound structures and spacecraft. Sounds like fun in the lab to me.

Well chipper since you're assuming I think this is around the corner sure, profit is questionable with TODAYS technology. But just as questionable are our technological forecasting abilities...

The point is there's no reason for you to assume this will forever be a "pipe dream" just because you have no clue how it would be done. None of us do. I'm not even sure if it could be done! However IF it did happen, then obviously it would be because we can get something from it. That's all I'm saying.

Well there is a few things to think about:
1, There is man made diamonds but the one's we mine are a lot better because they have less cracks when looked at very closely bringing up there value.
2, diamonds are used to build a lot of things that people use daily, diamond dust is even on saw blades at home depot, lowes,ect.
3, What kind of diamonds they are can change the value, color, cracks, ect.
4, Carbon form, liquid, all that does not matter, because its caused by the heat, pressure, ect. That means if we bring it back it will cool down and become stable under earths pressure and temps. possibly even crack free and perfect it shipped right.
5, The reason they would mine that place instead of the moon or mars is because the loot is floating visible on the surface of the "ocean or luquid diamond seas" where it would be scooped out by some kind of net instead of dug out of rock.
The trick would be finding a way to net some from a close orbit (or fly by), or lowering some kind of scoop down either way will be years away, but very possible considering we have started building the stuff for a elevator to space, also shuttles you can now book for $20-40,000 to space just for fun, and we have a space station already up there in use, we have landed probes on passing meteors, sent probes past pluto, and are starting a permanent living habitat on the moon.
We will find a way we always do it just will be nice for Nasa to find the money to speed up the process of moving people into space and learning whats out there without it being a big deal or taxing on us.

As the conclusion said - these floating diamonds could pay for the missions!! Brilliant!!!
JerryS
http://www.giochidicarteonline.it

if there are diamonds on neptune or uranus we would have to be able to travel at speeds close or just below the speed of light in order for HUMANS to get there but if someone invented a under-water mining machine we could just wait for it to get there and back.oh and i know it sounds weird,but uranus is pronouced ur anus not urens