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Diamond Rain In Saturn
Taco Cowboy writes "Back in 1999, it was postulated that diamonds may rain from the sky in the atmospheres of our solar system's gas giants. Now, research has shown that diamond rains on Saturn are more than probable. '"We don't want to give people the impression that we have a Titanic-sized diamondberg floating around," said researcher Mona Delitsky, of California Specialty Engineering, "We're thinking they're more like something you can hold in your hand." Recent data compiled by planetary scientists ... has been combined with newly published pressure temperature diagrams of Jupiter and Saturn. These diagrams, known as adiabats, allow researchers to decipher at what interior level that diamond would become stable. They also allow for calculations at lower levels – regions where both temperature and pressure are so concentrated that diamond becomes a liquid. Imagine diamond rain or rivulets of pure gemstone.' 'At even greater depths, the scientists say the diamond will eventually melt to form liquid diamond, which may then form a stable ocean layer.'
It also remains far over valued versus its industrial use. This means we are limiting its use so that goldbugs can hoard it. Not much better than a cartel.
Aren't they essentially saying there might be oceans of carbon, but using diamond to make better headlines?
That someone is De Beers. That company basically *is* the international diamond market.
Smallish diamonds aren't that rare, no. The price is kept artificially high. The ridiculously huge ones are, though. The ones only affordable by royalty and the mega-rich. Still, if they want to spend their wealth buying pieces of shiny rock, let them.
no scotch found yet, but would you settle for vodka?
http://io9.com/5911365/how-alcohol-is-formed-naturally-in-space
Wikipedia begs to differ: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liquid_crystal
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How can you have different phases of liquid?
Supercooled region
Compressible region
Incompressible region
Supercritical region
It gets really weird at extreme temperatures and pressures. Solids don't get to have all the fun.
Nope, not forever, diamond is just transparent coal, it'll burn away to nothing in a hot enough fire.
Ssssshhhhhh! Don't spoil the industry's carefully nurtured romantic image.
Also, please don't spoil the manufactured illusion that diamonds are rare and valuable which you'll soon find some problems with if you try to sell a gem-grade diamond for anything like the price you paid for it.
Basically, the modern diamond industry is a scam designed to promote the illusion of value and scarcity around diamonds, and has been since mass diamond mines emerged in the late 19th century and the owners formed the De Beers cartel to promote their own self interest.
So, if these diamonds on Saturn were somehow accessible to us... well, yeah, diamond would become a lot less valuable. But it's not like they're actually *that* rare or valuable just now.
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A "cultured" diamond will sell for considerably less than a mined diamond of the same quality.
I was quite interested in purchasing a synthetic diamond a few years ago, and kept an eye on what the major US players (D.NEA, Gemesis, and Apollo Diamond) were doing.
While the prices of fancy colors (blue, yellow) were much less than colored natural diamonds, I found that (at that time, at least), the prices of colorless synthetic diamonds were about the same or even higher than natural diamonds.
Synthetic colorless diamonds were apparently harder to produce, since color is caused by impurities. The sizes were also relatively limited, e.g., it was hard to find anything higher than 0.5 ct.
Things may have changed since then, though.
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