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Nearby Super-Earth Likely a Diamond Planet

By Guest PostOctober 11, 2012Science55 cancri e, atmosphere, cancer, carbon, carbon rich, chemistry, compound, constellation, core, david spergel, Diamond, diamond planet, earth, earth mass, element, fahrenheit, formation, gas planet, graphite, habitable world, hyper speed, interior, kanani lee, mass, mineral, molten iron, mountain formation, nikku madhusudhan, olivier mousis, oxygen, planet, plate tectonics, princeton university, radius, rocky planet, scientist, seismic activity, silicates, silicon carbide, size, specific characteristics, star, stellar composition, super earth, surface, temperature, thermal evolution, volcanism, water, yale university

New research led by Yale University scientists suggests that a rocky planet twice Earth’s size orbiting a nearby star is a diamond planet.

“This is our first glimpse of a rocky world with a fundamentally different chemistry from Earth,” said lead researcher Nikku Madhusudhan, a Yale postdoctoral researcher in physics and astronomy. “The surface of this planet is likely covered in graphite and diamond rather than water and granite.”

The paper reporting the findings has been accepted for publication in the journal Astrophysical Journal Letters. (more…)

Japan Quake May Have Shortened Earth Days, Moved Axis

The March 11, magnitude 9.0 earthquake in Japan may have shortened the length of each Earth day and shifted its axis. But don’t worry-you won’t notice the difference.

Using a United States Geological Survey estimate for how the fault responsible for the earthquake slipped, research scientist Richard Gross of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., applied a complex model to perform a preliminary theoretical calculation of how the Japan earthquake-the fifth largest since 1900-affected Earth’s rotation. His calculations indicate that by changing the distribution of Earth’s mass, the Japanese earthquake should have caused Earth to rotate a bit faster, shortening the length of the day by about 1.8 microseconds (a microsecond is one millionth of a second). (more…)

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Nearby Super-Earth Likely a Diamond Planet

Japan Quake May Have Shortened Earth Days, Moved Axis