It is certainly what you could call a gem of a discovery. Astronomers believe they have found an entire planet made of diamonds. Scientists at the University of Manchester think they have unearthed a once-massive star in the Milky Way that has been transformed into a small planet made of the precious rock.
在這個通貨膨脹危機四伏的時代，這個發(fā)現(xiàn)絕對會讓所有想讓自己資產(chǎn)保值的人眼前為之一亮，據(jù)悉，來自英國曼徹斯特大學(xué)的天文學(xué)家發(fā)現(xiàn)一顆奇特的“鉆石行星”，這顆行星位于銀河系、其密度遠大于任何已知的行星，主要成分是碳。由于密度超高，科學(xué)家認(rèn)為，這顆行星的碳極可能是結(jié)晶體，這就意味這個星球到處都是如假包換的鉆石。
The international research team first detected an unusual star, called a pulsar, and followed up their discovery with research using a telescope based in an observatory in Cheshire. The findings led the scientists to discover the gravitational pull of a small companion planet orbiting the pulsar. Pulsars are small spinning stars more than ten miles in diameter – the size of a small city – that emit a beam of radio waves.
據(jù)悉，發(fā)現(xiàn)這顆“鉆石行星”是之前先因探測到“脈沖星”而碰巧發(fā)現(xiàn)的。脈沖星是一種源自恒星坍塌死亡并發(fā)生超新星爆發(fā)之后的殘留物(俗稱“恒星尸體”)，能有規(guī)律地發(fā)出強烈的電磁輻射。當(dāng)這顆“鉆石”行星圍繞脈沖星J1719-1438運行時，脈沖星不斷地對這顆行星進行著電磁波透視。碰巧的是，這顆脈沖星的輻射會有規(guī)律地掃過地球，設(shè)在澳大利亞、英國以及美國的天文望遠鏡都分別觀測到過這種輻射。因脈沖星對“鉆石行星”進行輻射，而最終讓我們發(fā)現(xiàn)它。
The team, also made up of scientists from Australia, Germany, Italy and the United States, thinks that the ‘diamond planet’ is all that remains of the original star, most of whose matter was siphoned off towards the pulsar. The companion planet is small, at less than 40,000 miles wide – about five times the diameter of Earth.
來自澳大利亞、德國、意大利以及美國的科學(xué)家團隊認(rèn)為這顆“鉆石行星”是脈沖星的殘留物，它的質(zhì)量比木星稍大，密度卻足足是木星的20倍。這顆鉆石行星距離地球大約4000光年(6.44萬公里)，大約是地球直徑的5倍。
Research team member Dr Michael Keith said: 'This remnant is likely to be largely carbon and oxygen, because a star made of lighter elements like hydrogen and helium would be too big to fit the measured orbiting times.' The density means that this material is certain to be crystalline, that is, a large part of the star may be similar to a diamond.
科研組成員博士Dr Michael Keith 說：“這顆行星可能主要由碳和氧組成。而倘若由氫和氦組成的話，星球可能會因太大而不適宜軌道測量。”密度測量結(jié)果意味著這些物質(zhì)一定是水晶，而被許多人珍視的鉆石，實質(zhì)是碳元素的單質(zhì)晶體。也就是說，那顆行星的大部分可能都與鉆石類似。
