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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?
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
The Christian religion has been and still is the principal enemy of moral progress in the world. -- Bertrand Russell
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