Mercury’s surface may be studded with diamonds. You heard that correctly – diamonds.
According to research presented at the recent Lunar and Planetary Science Conference, computer simulations showed that billions of years of meteorite impacts on the surface of Mercury actually had enough pressure and high temperatures to transform graphite into diamonds. Stranger still, the reason Mercury likely had so much graphite, to begin with, is, according to lead scientist Kevin Cannon, “that when [Mercury] first formed, it had a magma ocean, and that graphite crystallized out of that magma.”
So this crust of graphite gets bombarded meteors, and with no atmosphere to slow them down, those meteor impacts, Cannon explains, “create very high pressures and temperatures that can transform carbon into diamond.”
Now while it’s possible that some of those diamonds were later destroyed by further impacts, it should be noted that the melting point of diamonds is greater than 4000 degrees Celsius, so if this hypothesis proves true, there are likely still diamonds on the surface of Mercury, waiting to be found. ESA’s BepiColombo spacecraft will arrive at Mercury in 2025 and could detect infrared evidence of those diamonds.
We’ll let you know then if they find any.
More Information
Diamonds may stud Mercury’s crust (Science News)
