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Uranus and Neptune May Have "Oceans of Diamonds"
Third Position writes "Oceans of liquid diamond topped with solid 'icebergs' of the precious gems could be on Uranus and Neptune. The first-ever detailed research into the melting point of diamond found it behaves like water during melting and freezing — with its solid form floating on the liquid. A large diamond ocean on one or both of the planets could provide an explanation for an oddity they both share: unlike Earth, they do not have magnetic poles that match up with their geographical poles." The article doesn't mention what the pressures might be like in these outer-planets environments, but the researchers found that liquefying diamond requires 40 million times Earth's atmospheric pressure at sea level.
So now /.ers can tell their "girlfriends" that if you want a diamond, you're free to look for one in Uranus?
"Anyone who [rips a CD] is probably engaging in copyright infringement." - David O. Carson
Like many sci-fi authors who predicted inventions long before they became practical, bluegrass can now claim foresight into future scientific advances.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
"Pardon my French, but Cameron is so tight that if you stuck a lump of coal up his ass, in two weeks you'd have a diamond."
-- Ferris Bueller
That is a very good first post. I can't touch it, nor would I want to for that matter.
But the false market of these rocks has basically caused me to steer way clear of them. The woman I married and love doesn't have one from me, the only woman I purchased one for, well, I ran away.
I'd like to let everyone know that Mars is full of gold just under the crust, and every planet around Proxima Centauri is rich with uranium.
Get that space program moving.
detailed research into the melting point of diamond found it behaves like water during melting and freezing -- with its solid form floating on the liquid
I only point this out because you would be surprised at how many human beings don't know this, but for it to float to the top, that means its frozen state is less dense, hence expands, when freezes. Almost nothing else does this.
"When life gives you lemons, don't make lemonade. Make life take the lemons back!" -- Cave Johnson
now I am convinced humans will create space ships, because nothing will get in the way of greed !!!
There's no way this is even remotely possible.
I mean, diamonds are rare, aren't they? You know it, I know it, and De Beers know it.
"Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
no. the shipping cost is greater than the value of the (semi-precious) gems you'd get. also the debeers would get upset, and the (highly controlled) diamond market would collapse.
The possibilities of exploring the outer "ice giants" is massive. I think, at least. I may not even make the pun because I think the idea of exploring them is so interesting.
Submarines are designed to handle a test depth of maybe 1600 ft which means maybe 50 bar of pressure. At that pressure, the atmosphere of Uranus is a little below freezing. The gravity is less than Earth. I suspect that with correct ballasting you could make a metal sphere float in the atmosphere for quite some time by keeping the insides pressurized to a convenient atmospheric pressure. So sticking around for a while isn't hard.
I can't find any good information on the radiation environment there and if you could put humans in the little bubble circling Uranus.. um.. yeah, I lied above.
Gentoo Sucks
Might be worth the cost of shipping if it did away with the diamond industry once and for all! Of course, what with marketing, De Beers would probably buy up the stock from Uranus and either dump it in the ocean, or sell it at 500% the price of normal diamonds as "space diamonds... the most romantic diamond yet. Shit that's been floating on the seas of Uranus for millions of years can now be on your hand - FOREVER."
"Anyone who [rips a CD] is probably engaging in copyright infringement." - David O. Carson
40 million atmospheres is the kind of pressure that you'd measure under 400 million meters (400,000km) of material at a density of 1 g/cm^3 at a constant 1 g. Uranus and Neptune's gravity field is near 1g give or take and the density is not much more than 1g/cm^3 so the pressure in the core can not be 40 million atmospheres as there isn't ~400,000 km of material sitting above the core. Given that Uranus has a radius of ~25,000 km, density of ~1.27 g/cm^3, surface gravity of 8.7 m/s^2 and that the gravity field drops off roughly linearly with depth, the pressure is probably about a tenth of what TFA says diamond started to melt. Either someone dropped a zero where it didn't belong or Diamond isn't fluid in these planets' cores.
Sigs are too short to say anything truly profound so read the above post instead.
Escape velocity is such that while humans could be landed on Neptune or Uranus they couldn't be lifted off without advanced fusion powered rockets. I don't actually think the giant planets have much potential for us unless we find ways to exploit humungus amounts of mass. Applications like building ringworld and dyson spheres could require that much mass.
The moons of the giant planets will keep us busy for 1000 years at least.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
My ass. Not all that comes out of uranus is diamond.
Fuck systemd. Fuck Redhat. Fuck Soylent, too. Wait, scratch the last one.
I wonder why the headline isn't
Uranus and Neptune May Have "Oceans of melted coal"
"diamond" is by definition a solid crystalline form of carbon. If you melt it, it is by definition not diamond anymore.
don't cut it off www.mgmbill.org
These diamonds aren't "precious". Either they're too far out of our reach and therefore worthless or they're within our reach and they're worthless because there's so many of them. If we could ever make it there and back the diamond market would crash. Not that that would be a bad thing. Debeers needs to have their illegal monopoly crushed by any means necessary.
-1 disagree is not a modifier for a reason. -1 troll, flaimbait, redundant, overrated are NOT acceptable substitutes.
Dibs on Uranus.
This is AWESOME!. We'll all be rich! Rich as astronauts! Because, of course, the value that we humans put into diamonds are because of their inherent worth to our quality of life and has nothing to do with the fact that we're a bunch of yahoos..
Free the Quark 3 from asymptotic confinement! Bring your charm! Don't get down! All colours and flavours welcome!
I recall someone doing some maths and determined that if there were a mountain of gold bars on the moon it would not be economical to go get some. Same applies here I'd imagine, much moreso.
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
So, how is liquid diamond different from liquid graphite or liquid carbon? It's my understanding that the only difference between graphite and diamond is that the crystalline structure is 2-d in graphite and 3-d in diamond.
Is it just the fact that at those temperatures and pressures the natural crystals formed from the liquid are diamond?
yeah also... klingons are usually found on uranus.
NASA launches a joint space program with De Beers. The world's largest diamond producer is looking forward to cutting house sized diamonds.
Hal Clement thought too small. Mesklin may be too low pressure for complex life.
One of the reasons earth is so amenable to life is that ice floats, so the oceans remain deep and liquid. The hydrocarbon oceans of Mesklin would be shallow and cold, a thin layer of liquid ammonia or methane over ices and clathrates. Thus they wouldn't serve as a moderator of temperature and reservoir of life the way Earths oceans have.
But if life based on crystalline carbon at millions of atmospheres is possible at all, it's all the more possible if the carbon-cycle resembles the water cycle on Earth.
Escape velocity is such that while humans could be landed on Neptune or Uranus they couldn't be lifted off without advanced fusion powered rockets.
Yeah, well don't forget about the gravity. If humans landed on those planets I doubt they'd be very interested in taking off again. Although they might make good frisbees from then on.
American Third Position
Finally, a real choice!
Let DeBeers spend all their money getting to Uranus first! You're ruining the plan!!
Though if it would be possible to mine this form of coal in industrial quantities, it could suddenly become useful as a mineral... (yes, I know diamonds are useful already - but those are usually small amounts of manufactured ones). There's even one book by Stephenson more or less about it. And hey, you have whole moon out there full of hydrocarbons, in quantities many times greater than deposits on Earth.
Is it impractical now? Hell yeah. Will it always be? I don't know. But I'm sure many people would laugh at you only few thousand years ago for suggesting that dark rocks can be used as a source of energy. A thousands years ago for suggesting the same with whale oil on industrial scale. 200 years ago with that black oily substance seeping from the ground here and there. Rocks from which people get mysteriously sick used for power generation and most powerful explosives? Tapping the power of a volcano? Splitting water to get to the Moon? That's insane!
One that hath name thou can not otter
That was a very clever trick. NASA won't need to worry about getting the funding to build long-range spacecraft anymore now. Devious...
I really don't find this all that surprising, diamonds aren't even that rare on earth. The only reason they are so expensive is because diamond companies buy them all up and only put very few on the market. However, I have to admit, an iceberg of diamonds would look pretty darn awesome!
Escape velocity is such that while humans could be landed on Neptune or Uranus they couldn't be lifted off without advanced fusion powered rockets.
Yeah, well don't forget about the gravity. If humans landed on those planets I doubt they'd be very interested in taking off again. Although they might make good frisbees from then on.
As cmowire pointed out gravity on most of these planets is not so great, with the exception of Jupiter where it is IIRC 2.5 g or so. On saturn it is just over a g and on Uranus and Neptune it is below one g. While their mass is huge their density is low so gravity is modest.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
The problem isn't somuch the escape velocity required, as it is getting the fuel there. Look how much fuel it takes to get the shuttle out of the atmosphere. Compare that with the weight of the shuttle itself. Now imagine what it would take to launch that much fuel into orbit, if you were going to take it with you and use it to take off from Neptune after you landed.
Fusion drive probably wouldn't be any more useful there as it is here. Currently the most practical way to orbit is to trade mass at appreciable velocity, and the problem there is you usually want the mass you're trading to come from the same thing that's generating the velocity, and that'd be rocket fuel. Not much of that on Neptune unfortunately, or anything else with those two qualities.
Owell the first people to go there or mars or whatever are going to be permanent residents anyway. I'd still go though, given the opportunity - I doubt they'll have problems finding takers for that one when it comes up.
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
The Doctor already knew this. But watch out. What they don't mention is that planets with diamond waterfalls also apparently have strange, ethereal aliens that like to play "copycat" and have a thing for possessing lesbian women.
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.... There are nuggets on Ura... oh boy, this one is gonna go on forever.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't the whole diamond market a big scam? Can't you make diamonds in a laboratory with elemental carbon at a fraction of the cost of what the diamond cartels charge?
(-1, Raw and Uncut is the only way to read)
That's nothing. I know of a planet that is made out of candy and chocolate and ponies. Just step into my vehicle, and I'll show it to you, little girl.
... and then they built the supercollider.
when we have a huge chunk of cheese hanging right above us?
such a dumb discussion. we can't even begin to think of getting anyone on the moon (again?), let alone up uranus....
Comment removed based on user account deletion
And you might also be interested to know that a mountain of gold doesn't eve exist on the earth. Apparently all the gold ever refined in the world would only fill a cube 20 meters on each side.
There's at least one notable substance that shares this property: Water.
And another notable one, silicon.
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
It's the SKIES that are made of diamonds.
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
>if there were a mountain of gold bars on the moon it would not be economical to go get some.
Why not? All you have to do is get there, ie. the cost of the rocket and fuel, plus training and supplies.
Then once you're up there, all you have to do is throw all the gold back down.
Corporation, n. An ingenious device for obtaining individual profit without individual responsibility. - Ambrose Bierce
I'm waiting for Unobtainium.
Cue the Blue People and Human Mercenary Invaders!
Yeah! Because I'm sure if the pressure is 40 million infinition; enough to liquify diamond, I'm sure our puny steel vehicles will stand up to it just fine. Just send someone up there to scoop it all up into a cargo hold and fly it back here. Easy peasy.
You know what else De Beers is peeved about? Man-made diamonds. They're cheaper and more ethical than anything De Beers can find in Sierra Leone.
Could you call them "blood diamonds" if an astronaut dies in the process of getting some?
So does this mean we get to land there, mine the gems, and get our asses kicked by the locals?
Actually a nuclear powered rocket will do just fine. Nobody there to get pissed off if you pressurize some of the abundant hydrogen into a tank and run it past a fission reactor.
Gentoo Sucks
"An ocean of diamonds? In my anus?"
It's more likely than you think.
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The atmosphere of Uranus is 83% hydrogen. If we can't turn that into fuel for a fusion reactor then we won't be operating in the atmosphere of that planet. So the planet has plenty of fuel, and fusion power is (as always) 50 years away.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
We're going to see rappers really getting into astronomy and space travel now. Only in an attempt to be the first rapper with a diamond pool in one of his videos. Or maybe have a tap with running diamonds in his mansion to one up Dave Chappelle sprinkling diamonds on his dinosaur eggs. Once 106 & Park gets involved in space aeronautics we may actually start seeing videos like this. You know, to get the kids involved.
The eternal struggle of good vs. evil begins within one's self.
I think it was first mentioned in the book 2010 that Jupiter may have a core of diamond, nd later in the book 2061 an astronomer finds a piece of it (after Jupiter is blown up into a star by the monolith) on Europa.
So it would not be surprising to find diamond at the core of other gas giants. But so what, we could make diamond here on earth for less energy cost than digging it out of a gas giant and bringing it back to earth.
Uranus is a girl's best friend.
Well he did say water and diamond and not much else.
Water and diamond does include both water and diamond...
So now /.ers can tell their "girlfriends" that if you want a diamond, you're free to look for one in Uranus?
I'm sorry langelgjm but astronomers renamed Uranus in 2620 to end that stupid joke once and for all...
...DeBeers lobbies congress that the Space Program is a huge waste of money when there are real problems to be solved *here on earth*.
I heard that there's obscene amounts of unobtainium in one of the moons of Pandora, and it's yours for the taking!
Computers are useless. They can only give you answers.
-- Pablo Picasso
Then once you're up there, all you have to do is throw all the gold back down.
Well, you'd have to "throw" it down slowly enough so that it doesn't become a molten, white-hot projectile and embed itself several miles in the ground when it crash-lands.
Computers are useless. They can only give you answers.
-- Pablo Picasso
"...unlike Earth, they do not have magnetic poles that match up with their geographical poles."
Unlike Earth, neither does Earth. The Earth's south magnetic pole is presently about 25.6 degrees from the south pole. Granted, that's not 60 degrees, but apparently neither are theirs since according to TFA the magnetic poles on Uranus and Neptune "can be up to 60 degrees off the north-south axis", it they were, there's be no reason to say "can be".
There's no note regarding secondary poles on the giant planets like on the sun, but according the Oersted and Magsat satellite data and article in Nature in 2002 (416/8661, pp 620-623) there's an alternate pole developing in the South Atlantic west of South Africa. There's also a geomagnetic anomaly near Lake Baikal in Siberia that causes deflection in the magnetic field measured as far away as Japan, but there's no evidence (or none as yet) that it's a developing "alternate". But one's enough, when it comes to picking apart TFA. Not only is Earth unlike the Earth they compare against while constructing their theory, it's quite capable of being equal to the giants in its unlikeness in the complete absence of diamond seas with or without diamondbergs.
"I may be synthetic, but I'm not stupid." -- Bishop 341-B
Think about this:
Diamond has no value in itself. It has technical applications, but there are already good substitutes, and for those applications (given the small amount needed, and the low quality of the diamonds involved) it's relatively cheap.
The value of Diamonds is artificially controlled: Scarcity, and symbolic value.
So, if normal Diamonds are expensive, Diamonds from space will be N times more expensive. They are actually MORE scarce, because They are fucking hard to bring back. Also, harvesting is more expensive (considering it were possible at all with current technology).
Also, there's is the "From space" thing. Currently, Synthetic diamonds are pretty cheap to produce, and they are legally diamonds. (I'm not talking about Zirconia, I'm talking about artificially produced diamonds). And still, people want real diamonds. Is there a difference between them? Nop, just the "This is scarce and comes from the core of the planet" thing.
So, Diamonds from outer space will be:
a) Fucking expensive
b) A great name for a band or B horror movie.
WTF am I doing replying to an AC at 5 A.M on a Friday night?
Actually it would be much smaller! There have been roughly 3.4B troy oz of gold mined, or about 116,000 short tons. 1 ft^3 = ~.5 short tons so ~58,000 ft^3 or ~1,642 m^3 or less than 1/4 your 8,000 m^3 cube =)
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We can also burn hydrogen.
That and Canadian and Russian production that basically broke the cartel. Though according to their reports they actually have better profits at 40% of the gem market then when they controlled 80+%.
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
I wonder if whoever did the calculation did take into account how much the value of gold would decrease with the enormous increase in supply. Gold is only valuable because it's rare. Practical uses require very little and nobody would value gold anymore if they knew that somebody had a mountain of it available.
The economy of mining other planets changes with increasing technology. If you have a cheap spaceship with a cheap propulsion system, it becomes more economical. If that propulsion system happens to run on HE3 then mining the moon becomes even more economical as the moon has tons and the earth has almost none.
As far as extracting mountains of diamonds from the massive gravity well of a gas giant, you would need some very advanced technology and a damn good reason. I doubt engagement rings are going to cut it.
Maybe if you needed a light, hard impact shield for ships moving at high sub-light speeds or something. I don't really know, the only uses I know of for diamonds at the moment are cutting things and getting laid.
Cool art gallery, if you're into that sort of thing.
Uranus is a girl's best friend. Errr... maybe not.
Do you mean chemically? In oxygen? Where are you going to find oxygen on Uranus? In water molecules I suppose but you still need a source of energy to crack the water which means fission, or preferable fusion power.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
But then you'd miss out on all the fun of mining it out of the Earth...
Not to mention that by the time we have the tech to be able to mine Neptune diamonds we won't need to. We'll be able to *make* diamonds ... or anything else for that matter.
[signature]
That's a big twinkie.
Uranus' atmosphere is 83% hydrogen, 15% helium and 2% methane, making oxidation a bit of a problem. Maybe something in the environment besides oxygen would work. I dunno.
"I know that every word that man just said is true, because it's EXACTLY what I wanted to hear." -- Space Ghost
Not only that, but it would probably be much more practical to set up outposts near the supply to take advantage of them; if we can mine those diamonds, we should certainly be able to set up some industrial outposts to utilize the diamonds properly.
http://www.tenjou.net/
Get a one-way ticket and pay for the return journey in gold?
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
Until we get there, it's all unobtainium.
Say hello to my little sig.
De Beers Marketing
1. A diamond is forever.
2. A diamond is a family heirloom.
3. If he truly loves you, he would buy a diamond that costs him 2 months' salary.
Pure genius.
"The economy of mining other planets...[snip]...the only uses I know of for diamonds at the moment are cutting things and getting laid."
Cost is irrelevant, history clearly demonstrates the prospect of getting laid has moved mountains.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
And, unlike natural diamonds, man-made diamonds are perfect. Which of course De Beers turns into a positive marketing spin.
Also many less children DIE from harvesting mad-made diamonds.
*DrugCheese rants*
When the scientists melted diamond and saw it resolidify and float on such a small scale, how can they assume diamond really floats on larger scales? Might not have capillary action come into play or some other force?
Yes but the oxidizer costs kill you.....
Tsukasa: All I really want, is to be left alone...
Yeah but the catch is you need obscene amounts of unobtainium to get there.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
Aim for the evildoers?
That and Canadian and Russian production that basically broke the cartel.
It might be more accurate to say they joined with the cartel to ensure that profits stay high through artificial scarcity.
If there's that much diamond available on another planet and if we were able to obtain it and bring it back to earth, its value would diminish very very quickly.
"... no text needed, if you can't figure it out then go have a drink.."
I respectfully suggest you stop drinking and re-read his post.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
Watch out for the Na'vi!
What was the price of gold when that math was done. Cuz its more than $1K per oz now, of course I realize thats mostly inflation. Also if we added a mountain of gold to the world wide supply it would drop in value.
I was going to reply that Slashdotters don't have girlfriends, but you had to go ahead and put quotation marks around it.
You have won this time langeljgm!!!
We can already make diamonds.
This is slashdot, so I suppose it should not come as a shock that the summary makes claims that don't stand up to even a casual examination. About 15 seconds on google scholar produces the following paper:
Correa, A.A. and Bonev, S.A. and Galli, G, Carbon under extreme conditions: Phase boundaries and electronic properties from first-principles theory. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America.103, 1204 (2006)
link to article
The second paragraph of the article in Nature Physics (subscription required) that this story is about mentions at least 11 other papers on theoretical calculations and experiments on the melting of diamond. So no, this is not in fact the first time that the melting of diamond has been studied. Indeed, the linked article itself refers to previous experiments at Sandia National Laboratory that melted diamond, but were unable to accurately determine the temperature and pressure.
This is truly impressive work by some very skilled scientists, but let's discuss it for what it is and not what it isn't.
Nope, only 3 of the 6 Canadian mines are members of DeBeers. Neither of the Russian mines are. The independent Canadian mines are owned primarily by BHP Billiton the largest mining company in the world and Rio Tinto Group which is the 4th largest mining company in the world, both are significantly larger than DeBeers.
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
What if it sold for $20 million per kilo?
*Fewer* children - you can't pour a glass of children. At least, you can't pour a glass of children that are capable of dying...
That's not completely far from the truth. The gravity well out of the earth is much, much deeper than the gravity well of the moon.. In essence, it takes 1/20th as much effort to get something from the moon to the earth, as from the earth to the moon.
I believe it would take about 2.3 km/s firing speed with no further engines or guidance to escape the moon's gravity well. This is *really fast*, but not completely out of the question. Add a few rockets, and it should be relatively easy to get material to the earth.
The ______ Agenda
"Oceans of Diamonds"??? De Beers has that already. Have you ever heard of "Artificial Scarcity"?
It's very hard to believe /.ers have a girlfriend.
I'd like to let everyone know that Mars is full of gold just under the crust, and every planet around Proxima Centauri is rich with uranium.
That's quite intriguing, and something to consider, although gold might not be worth going to Mars for if there were a whole planet of it there. And I'd rather just see more news about Uranus.
This is a hacked account, for which the owner can not be held responsible.
Earth's magnetic poles don't match the geographic poles. They pretty much never have, except by coincidence.
Using your figures:
116,000 short tons.
1 ft^3 = ~.5 short tons
(insert cup of coffee here)
232,000 ft^3
__ Someday, but not this morning, I'll finally learn to use the preview button.
Damn, that's twice in one week I was bad in my math on slashdot. It's still less than 6,600 m^3, though closer to the 8,000 m^3 cube =)
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
I didn't mean legally joining, I meant aligning themselves with the overall philosophy and methods. I particularly like how the Canadians have their "Polar Ice Certification" to ensure that you get a real Canadian diamond, and not one of those crappy ones from somewhere else...
http://www.polaricediamonds.com/
you missed a decimal place...
So far Earth is the only planet with free oxidiser because living things use solar energy to make oxygen. I have hopes for fossil oxidisers on Titan though.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
Ok, so maybe I'm just an idiot but I have some serious questions about this.
First of all the article mentions that
an oddity they both share: unlike Earth, they do not have magnetic poles that match up with their geographical poles."
Ummm, well, actually, Earth's magnetic poles do NOT match up with it's rotational axis (geographic poles they called it). So it should have said, LIKE earth...
Second, diamonds are carbon in a crystalline structure. I have a hard time believing that if you freeze them, they change at all.... since they are already in a crystalline form they would actually have to unassemble and reassemble into a different, less dense, crystalline structure. I suppose it might be possible, but I'd have to see an actual experiment which reproduces that effect to believe it.
Third, (see point 2), I guess you could "melt" diamonds, what you'd end up with is... melted carbon, not melted "diamond", since "diamond" is just a fancy name for that form of carbon.
I remember a book published c.1980 which had exposes of common fallacies in science, and things that make you go "Hmmmm!". One of the stories was "Neptune and Uranus are 17% crystallised diamonds." Alright, the story above talks about liquid diamonds, but the idea of their being precious materials in the outer solar systems isn't new!
My web domain.
As cmowire pointed out gravity on most of these planets is not so great, with the exception of Jupiter where it is IIRC 2.5 g or so. On saturn it is just over a g and on Uranus and Neptune it is below one g. While their mass is huge their density is low so gravity is modest.
It helps, but it's still a lot more costly energy-wise to launch from there.
If you were on the Earth's surface and then doubled your distance from the centre of the Earth, gravity will change from g to 0.25g (ie. the r squared term on the bottom of Newton's law of gravitation).
The Earth has a radius of 6,500 km, so to get that reduction of gravity, you need to supply enough energy to move about 6,500 km against gravity.
The radius of Uranus is about 25,559 km. Let's suppose the gravity on the surface there is also g for illustration. In this case to get the same reduction in gravity to 0.25g you need to supply enough energy to move about 25,559 km against gravity. In order to do that you would need to carry more fuel, which will compound your launch costs further.
To imagine it visually, think of the Earth's gravity as a gravity well with a gradient (ie. slope) of g at the Earth's surface. Imagine the same for Uranus. They both have the same slope at their surfaces, however, with Uranus, the gravity well is much larger, with gravity staying near g for a greater distance from it's surface. Clearly a larger gravity well is harder to escape even if the gravity is the same.
Try plugging in those values into Newton's law of universal gravitation yourself for confirmation.
Stephenson's Diamond Age isn't about mined diamonds, it's about when we're so capable of satisfying our every need with nanotechnology, that diamonds are cheap and easily fabricated (with interesting societal implications)... by far, my favorite Stephenson book.
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The shuttle is the way it is because nuclear launch systems are really messy on a populated planet.
A wide variety of nuclear propulsion systems are available and have even been vaguely tested on Earth. Like Project Pluto's nuclear ramjet. Nobody to piss off next door on any of the gas giants.
Gentoo Sucks
We can always go to Pandora and kill a race to mine something there
Thats easy:
Escape velocity of uranus: 21290 m/s
Escape velocity of earth: 11180 m/s
Interestingly it is actually only about twice as hard to get away from Uranus. Thats a lot better than I expected. Maybe its because of the low density and the fact that you start out in the fluffy atmosphere. Escape velocity from a singularity with the mass of Uranus or Earth is of course infinite.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
Actually world economy is based on the value of gold (and oil, but gold first and foremost) and if all of a sudden there were mountains of it the economy would collapse.The U.S. for starters would have to turn Fort Knox into a museum.
That's why I said "more or less", only as far large scale usage of diamond structures goes.
One that hath name thou can not otter
Not if you get the carbon from the corpses of Sierra Leone workers!
All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain.
DeBeers is building a space ship
---- "Logoff! That cookie shit makes me nervous!" - A. Soprano
I'm not a DeBeers shill and I actually am disgusted by the diamond trade. However, I have yet to see a manufactured diamond that can at all compare to a high quality natural diamond. Take a 1.5 cd manufactured diamond and put it next to a 1.5 cd natural diamond of any decent quality. You will see the difference if that natural diamond is even down as low as G or H on the color scale. You get a VS-1 E or F and it's like night and day.
The problem with the manufactured diamonds is they're full of impurities which generally impart a yellow tinge. I would guess down into the M, O, or P range if you're lucky. A lot of them would be considered light fancy.
I guess it's all about what you're going for. Most people probably can't tell. I have a few friends with manufactured diamond engagement rings though and it's pretty obvious if you've ever spent any time looking at natural diamonds. I always thought the fascination with diamonds was silly until I actually came into possession of high quality ones. There is a certain quality about them that manufactured or cubic zirconia just doesn't reach.
If someone can start making colorless flawless diamonds of 1 cd or larger they will be very rich, or very dead if DeBeers has any say in the matter.
Not one fekking word to my wife. I will find you.
That sinking feeling deep in your gut when you KNOW you screwed up bad summed up with: {head desk} {head desk}
Earl Grey tea.... Hot.
That sinking feeling deep in your gut when you KNOW you screwed up bad summed up with: {head desk} {head desk}
Actually I found that to be helpful when I was shopping for a diamond for my wife, I wanted a certified conflict-free diamond and at the time DeBeers was a long way from offering any such certification (ie they were still knowingly buying rough diamonds from the warlords).
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
You should have bought a diamond simulant. Most people can't tell the difference for a cheap one, and nice ones are even harder. I once took a nice one with a real diamond in to a jeweler, and he couldn't tell which one was real without magnification.
Cheaper, practically identical visually, always conflict free, almost as hard, easier to replace, and much cheaper. What isn't to love?
What did they rename it to?
I did simulants with a diamond deposition coating for some large earrings I bought her a few years later. For the engagement ring I had no problem following tradition as I was buying an inexpensive enough ring that the percentage difference between a nicely cut simulant and the mined stone was negligible (two years later we put 20% down on our house, the financial stability was worth more to her than any rock natural or not).
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
Oh great. Now it's going to turn out some 10' tall blue people live in trees on Uranus and we have to kill them to get at the diamonds...
Yellow synthetic diamonds (nitrogen impurity) are easy to make, comparatively, and form the basis of a lot of the industrial uses. However, vapour deposition techniques are quite capable of making blue (with boron) or colourless synthetic diamonds that are visually indistinguishable from a pure volcanic diamond.
In fact the only way to distinguish them is to do a chemical analysis (eg with UV light) and compare the result against the impurities listed in volcanic diamonds from all the known mines.
No, the economy is not "based" on the value of gold. The economy is "based" on human labor and trade.
Oil prices have important effects, since a gallon of oil replaces 50 man days of mechanical labor.
Gold is a luxury item with no inherent value.
There's a fairly good reason for that. They're actively marketing to people who don't want blood diamonds.
After all, I am strangely colored.
Diamond Nexus Labs has an online store for lab grown diamonds. I got one for my fiancee and thankfully (she is a nerd) she loves it more than a slave diamond. http://www.diamondnexuslabs.com/
http://xkcd.com/681/
We fetch your mail, we route your packets, we guard you while you surf. Don't fuck with us.
Gold is only valuable because it's rare. Practical uses require very little and nobody would value gold anymore if they knew that somebody had a mountain of it available.
Actually there would be a *lot* of practical uses for gold, if it weren't so darn expensive. For starters, gold-plating would probably be great for rustproofing and corrosion resistance. If it were cheaper, it could be used in places like insides of water heaters, greatly prolonging their lifetime. Gold plating would also be exellent replacment for paint and lacquer for many metal surfaces. Also it's an excellent electric conductor, and I think it would be superior to copper in almost every electric application. Gold might also help to make better slide bearings, possibly even replacing ball bearings in some applications. If price of gold were comparable to copper, it might also make excellent water piping for places where copper pipes are used today. And places that have gold plating today, it could be made thicker and thus more wear-resistant. And in medical field, a lot of places that now use plastics or even nastier stuff (like tooth fillings) could use gold.
And then there are all the uses that we haven't even thought about because gold is so expensive, but which would become feasible with cheaper gold.
Thats easy:
Escape velocity of uranus: 21290 m/s
Escape velocity of earth: 11180 m/s
Interestingly it is actually only about twice as hard to get away from Uranus. Thats a lot better than I expected. Maybe its because of the low density and the fact that you start out in the fluffy atmosphere. Escape velocity from a singularity with the mass of Uranus or Earth is of course infinite.
About four times as hard. KE=1/2 m v^2
Interestingly it is actually only about twice as hard to get away from Uranus
Thanks for that. I wasn't really prepared to do the integration to work it out.
However, remember that E = 1/2mv^2
So twice the velocity is four times the energy.
And unless your fuel is of negligible mass or your energy source is not carried out with the payload, you still need to supply even more energy to carry all that extra fuel.
In light of this, twice as fast does not equate to twice as hard.
Might I suggest a magnetic rail based system to launch payloads from Luna to Earth. I have reason to believe such a system could be quite effective.
Mycroft
https://signup.leagueoflegends.com/?ref=4c3ed6600b6ea
All the “worth” of diamonds is artificial anyway.
A diamond can easily be made and is worth a few cents. Tops. And it’s even of higher quality than anything nature has to offer.
The only people who still go “Ooohhh, diamonds!” are either very uninformed, or ignorant retards.
Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
Actually world economy is based on the value of gold (and oil, but gold first and foremost) and if all of a sudden there were mountains of it the economy would collapse.The U.S. for starters would have to turn Fort Knox into a museum.
With fiat currency, I think you overestimate significance of gold. It would be a great service to the world to release all the gold hoarded in vaults. It could be replaced with equal value of clean water, for example. Water also has the advantage, that value of clean water is only going up, while value of gold could very well go down.
but ... but ... but.... the genocide is where all the shiny comes from!
Of course Uranus is a gas giant
... but now Uranus is a girl's best friend!
So-
1.lets just blow the place up.
Or, more reasonably
2.drop bombs big enough to kick debris into space to be scooped up.
What could possibly go wrong!
You Sir, need to learn some basic economics. An economy is based on the exchange of goods and services (don't confuse that with labour). That exchange is facilitated by having a currency. The less a currency changes in value, the better since then savings and loans become possible. Thus it has been important to peg the currency to something which changes very little in value. Consequently, many currencies have been pegged to the value of gold until quite recently. The dollar was until 1971 and the Swiss Franc until a few years ago.
Ironically, you tried to enforce your claim with the best arguments to counter it. Oil prices vary and your fictional example of conversion to mechanical labour is even more ironic - converting oil to mechanical labour is impossible since the cost of labour compared to oil prices is so different everywhere and if you disregard labour cost and instead look at manhours, you still have a hard time coming up with an example where one could replace the other so that a conversion could be calculated. However, the conversion of oil into something can be used as an example of why oil cannot be the basis for exchange of goods and services since it is just a natural resource. If all of a sudden major technological advancements are made in battery technologies making electrical cars much more viable, the value of oil will drop enormously. Such a conversion isn't entirely fictional, you can compare electricity prices with oil prices. However, the very reason that gold has no "inherent value", i.e. it has little practical use, means that its value cannot be affected by technological developments and is thus good as the basis of value when goods and services are exchanged. At least until a mountain of gold is found on the moon and transported here...
I-I made some in the lab, but it like, self-annihilated to energy.
I now have radiation cancer, so i don't have a lot of time...
Give me lots of money so i can spend all of it on obtaining that which is unobtainable!
About four times as hard. KE=1/2 m v^2
Ah I forgot about that.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
You're right, I have a boyfriend. :)
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
I hear there's a large deposit on some moon called "Pandora" or so somewhere. Unfortunately, the locals aren't keen on us taking it...
Dragging the calculation into my grandad's generation's units, and hopefully getting it right this time ;-)
161 000 000 kg mined, as of 2009 (source.)
Density: 19300kg/m^3
So volume: 8340m^3.
Cube root of that: 20m.
visions of lollipops dancing in my head. What could be better than this?? Liquid Diamonds?? Are they hard as my hard water?
We must now give thanks who create this junk science and man made global warming.
...align with its geographical poles. We were all taught this in 3rd grade. Our magnetic poles wander around the planet all the time. This is called magnetic declination, and is something everyone who has studied basic navigation is well aware of.
...align with its geographical poles. We were all taught this in 3rd grade. Our magnetic poles wander around the planet all the time, and are pretty far off from the geographical poles. This is called magnetic declination, and is something everyone who has studied basic navigation is well aware of.
Tori Amos - Liquid Diamonds
There... somebody had to say it. I know all you Start Trek loving geeks out there were thinking it. Now go back to your "who'd you rather" debate.
My office has been taken over by iPod people.
You'll never get it.
...ooh its so bad nasty de beers mining in africa , its against my ethics blah blah effin blah...
Right , so in that case none of you own a mobile phone, computer, TV or 101 non essential electronic gadgets then? You do? Well who knew!
In that case you might want to go find out where a lot of minerals for them get mined and what the conditions are like for the workers, particularly coltan.
So I suggest you all get yourselves out of that hypocritical liberal glass house you're all standing in because you're just as guilty of exploiting african workers as some up market bimbo wearing a lot of De Beers ice.
And another home truth you might not want to hear is that most of that continent is run by warlords in one form or another - its just that some of then killed enough people to get the title of President. There are a few exceptions such as South Africa, Botswana & Kenya, but most of the countries there are about as democratic as Stalinist Russia. Any country that does business there has to accept that fact or simply not bother and given the rest of the worlds need for minerals the latter option ain't gonna happen.
Diamondus!
Build parachutes made of gold foil.
On a similar note, IIRC we can now convert other elements to gold - it's just not economical.
And you thought why the Moon is so empty and barren? Long time ago it was made of precious cheese, but a greedy bastard named Jules Verne shot a shell full of people there. BTW, the cheese that French guy carried back to Earth got spoiled, but everyone in France pretended they didn't notice it.
You misunderstood. Atamido said "they joined WITH the cartel", not that they JOINED the cartel. In other words, they formed an oligopoly, which still acts very much like a monopoly.
Remember, De Beers doesn't kill people, Sierra Leoneans kill people.
But let me guess, the diamond river is running beneath the holy-land of a civilization of blue creatures, who will need to be eliminated using Blackwater mercenaries?
In a Slashdot post I did a quick back-of-the-napkin example for giant diamonds on Mars, showing that it wouldn't be profitable even with very optimistic estimates for the value of the diamonds and the costs of transportation (using robots to grab them and bring them back). I can't find it now :(
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
A lot of the advertising that I've seen actually seems to say that they look better, which is silly. I'm guessing a lot of the people out there don't know what conflict diamonds are, or don't care. When your audience doesn't know enough to make an informed decision, it's easier for the marketing department to just make stuff up.
Sorry dude. There isn't oceans of diamonds, It's just a carbon ocean. When it cold, probally it will become graphite. Diamonds needs pressure. Think for a moment, why we dont melt small diamons into big ones?
Google the heat transfer rate of diamond. You will find no better material for a heat sink.
Co-incidentally in the same press conference as announcing the upcoming Uranus Mission, NASA has predicted profits for the first time ever in it's history ... profits of over 9000%
Throw it like a girl.
Who cares? I want a planet with oceans of liquid chocolate, topped with icebergs of delicious candy.
Mmmmm, Candy Planet.
The Jews are preparing a spaceship as we speak...
Quite true. In fact, if gold were more reasonably priced, I could get that "grill" I've always wanted. Couple that with super cheap Uranus diamonds, and I could be quite thoroughly "blinged" out.
Note: Quotation marks added for increased emphasis, due to my terminally Caucasian status.
Just another ignorant American.
From Wikipedia:
The traditional classification in the West, which goes back to the Ancient Greeks, begins with a distinction between precious and semi-precious stones; similar distinctions are made in other cultures. The precious stones are diamond, ruby, emerald and sapphire, with all other gemstones being semi-precious.[2] This distinction is unscientific and reflects the rarity of the respective stones in ancient times
That means if diamonds were to be classified today, they would be downgraded from "precious" to "semi-precious". Diamonds are not rare in the least. In fact, all planets are likely to have diamonds. All planets with geological activity, present or in the past, are likely to have diamonds on or near their surface.
I wish people would understand that the diamond market is completely artificially manipulated. Only industrial diamonds are mostly influenced by basic market supply and demand - but not completely. Diamonds which are used as precious stones have their supply tightly controlled so as to create artificial scarcity. Control on diamonds are so tightly controlled, in some countries (Africa), picking up a diamond without government permission (e.g. DeBeers) may result in execution on the spot. Think about that. If diamonds were so scarce, why would then need to specifically make legal provisions to allow for an extremely rare event of discovering a natural, rough diamond on the ground? Unless of course, they're not rare at all and diamonds really are commonly found simply laying on the ground. And people face execution because an unfeathered supply of diamonds to the market would crash their value over night.
There are few things in the modern times which have caused more pain, misery, death, and mass slavery than Diamonds and DeBeers. But to be clear, DeBeers is not alone here.
Few diamonds in the world, contrary to the conflict free marketing, are truly "blood-free", as as much as 60% of the "conflict free" diamonds are actually smuggled from "conflict zones". In other words, over half of every diamond you see in stores is there because of someone's murder, slavery (including children), and illegal imprisonment, torture, so on and so on.
So remember nothing says I love you like blood, summary executions, and slavery. Its not just a moto, its fact.
You might want to watch the man made diamonds done on the discovery channel ("How it's made" I think was the show). They grew diamonds. Then cut them into gemstones. This was a clear gemstone diamond. not one for industrial use.
It can be done. De Beers and the like just do not want it done.
Just what we needed, a car analogy
/ducks
>With fiat currency...
"If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear." - Every fascist, ever
I'm waiting for Gundanium.
http://www.diamondnexuslabs.com/?gclid=CIPXuJHGwp8CFdRM5QodL2yK3g
http://www.stauer.com/search.asp?catID=15&ad=STRSEMWBIWGOGJLY
This is my sig.
And that's why going back to a gold standard is stupid.
161000000kg / 6.7 billion = 24 grams per person (or USD850 per person at current high prices).
161000000kg of gold is worth USD5.7 trillion at current prices (USD35359/kg).
The current global economy must be way more than USD6 trillion. If it's 10x more, gold would be 10x more expensive.
So if we use gold as currency, gold would artificially become too/more expensive to use as a material (currently it is used in many common products with no problems).
Gold is too useful as a material to be wasted as a currency.
Wow, how did you really get one of the best-known sci-fi quotes ever wrong? You might as well have said "Dave, I don't think so"
Sorry about that, forgot where I was posting. Sure hope all you Wesley fanboys don't find out where I live.....
That sinking feeling deep in your gut when you KNOW you screwed up bad summed up with: {head desk} {head desk}
Then once you're up there, all you have to do is throw all the gold back down.
you'd still have to get it out of the Moon's gravity well
It's speculated that there's a huge nugget of gold and uranium at the very center of the earth.
http://www.abc.net.au/science/news/stories/s1663566.htm
"always conflict free" until your sweetie finds out it didn't cost 3 months' salary. Then you're fucked. Or not, as the case may be.
Eloi are stupid, throw morlocks at them!
Fiat's not a car, it's an Italian crapmobile.
hmmmm, what's that make Chrysler, then?...
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
One flaw in the article, a minor one mind you. " unlike Earth, they do not have magnetic poles that match up with their geographical poles."
Earths pole are not congruent, they do not match.
How the F*K is the above comment a flamebait? Not agreeing is different than flaming
No, the economy is not "based" on the value of gold. The economy is "based" on human labor and trade.
Oil prices have important effects, since a gallon of oil replaces 50 man days of mechanical labor.
Gold is a luxury item with no inherent value.
Obviously you never took a course in economy, much less a degree in economics.
Fiat's not a car, it's an Italian crapmobile.
And obviously you're a flamebait moron who adds no value to a conversation. For starters FIAT has made and makes some pretty good value cars, in terms of price and quality/use. Second, they represent more than one brand, including Ferrari
How does Discovery let writing this bad on their web page?
"Oceans of liquid diamond, filled with solid diamond icebergs, could be floating on Neptune and Uranus, according to a recent article in the journal Nature Physics."
Dear Aspiring Journalists and Scientists,
Take more than English 101. Use a the grammar check... even MS Word would have helped here.
Utilizing the synergization of benchmark e-solutions to pre-workaround action items!
I just dropped by to read the funny comments on Uranus. Well done people.
"always conflict free" until your sweetie finds out it didn't cost 3 months' salary. Then you're fucked. Or not, as the case may be.
Not necessarily, if you agree to "invest" the difference into the marriage preparations or spend it on her in some other way, most women wouldn't care.