It's raining diamonds on Neptune & Uranus

Alec Muzzy writes "The U of C of Berkeley has reported that on Neptune the intense heat and pressure of the atmosphere likely creates diamonds out of methane which then fall like hail on the gas giant. " Interesting reasons why - but isn't it a Arthur C. Clarke book that postulates, back in the 80s, that the center of of the gas giants are enormous diamonds - like the size of the earth?

Comments

Diamonds are not particularly rare.

[Anonymous Coward]

This story presents a perfect opportunity to point out to people that Diamonds are not particularly rare. There is a myth of scarcity fabricated by the DeBeers cartel, to keep the price of diamonds up. Obviously we don't find diamonds out in the driveway, so they are not a common rock, but the DeBeers cartel has cornered the market on raw diamonds as mined from the earth, and they lock away most of the annual output of these rocks.

Diamonds are the same kind of valuable item as Beanie Babies, for much the same reason. Don't ever rely on them as an investment vehicle. There are other precious minerals which are far more secure, whose value is not dependent on the arbitrary actions of a single corporate interest.

The on-topic gist of this message I am typing is to make clear to everyone that no, we shouldn't shoot off into space to grab all the diamonds in space. All we need to do is bust a monopoly and there will be plenty of diamonds for all who want them.

Why is this kind of thing allowed?

[Wakko Warner]

It seems rather... bizzarre... that the world allows a single organization to control and fix the prices of something that's neither a scarce commodity like oil (though that's debateable too) nor a manufactured good.

Wish I'd thought of it first though.

- A.P.
--

"One World, one Web, one Program" - Microsoft promotional ad

Cool

[Shanoyu]

Now if we can create a ship that can haul back a diamond the size of the earth, or even take a chunk out of it, it'll be a miracle. But thats beside the point.

Sure, if we could get the diamonds out of there it would be great, but uh, they are in an area of _INTENSE_PRESSURE_, thats why they are diamonds, after all, and thats going to make it a real pain in the butt to get them out, since you can't just send in a gigantic retractable claw, (it would get squeezed into nothing) Although maybe you could hold coal close to where the pressure is extremely intense and watch the coal turn to diamonds.


-[ World domination - rains.net ]-

Space travel..

[Weezul]

This is interesting, but will not make spacetravel more cost effective. We can make Diamond's now.. we make industrial grade ones allthe time, but they place a market in them to keep from putting the diamond cartel (which uses slave labor to get the natural diamonds) out of buisness. I've personally always though that it was morally reprehensible for the indutrial diamond makers not to flood the market with cheep machine made diamoned and put the sleeze bags who run the diamond cartel out of buisness.

Jeff

Lump of Coal

[veldrane]

To badly paraphrase Ferris Bueller:
"If you stuck a lump of coal in Uranus, in two weeks, you'd have a diamond."

(Ok, so its redundant...)

But really, the only reason diamonds are such a valuable commodity on Terra is simply for the reason that they are not common or easily brought into circulation. Now, if for some odd reason, it rained diamonds here, their value as a monetary staple would be nonexistant.
Of course, we could easily develop technologies based on diamonds because of the drive that an inexpensive resource has on the market. I feel that's one of the reasons for the silicon(sand) market. Sure, you can make Real Cool Things(tm) out of rare earth metals but it won't become a technology that's widely accepted.
But if it did rain diamonds, the question would be, what would engagement rings be made of?

-Vel

ooh.

[Stonehand]

If pressurized methane results in diamonds, then cows should be rich. {j/k}

But more seriously, folks... this goes hand-in-hand with the possible commercialization of space (G2S Corporation, anyone?). If they could be extracted inexpensively (as if...), imagine what it'd do to the DeBeers cartel.

Well, more seriously... ok. Maybe I'm just in a silly mood today. {shrug}