An artist’s rendering of the MESSENGER spacecraft at Mercury. (NASA)
Could there be diamonds on Mercury? According to NASA, its MESSENGER (Mercury Surface, Space Environment, Geochemistry and Ranging) probe discovered what could be a layer of diamonds 10 miles thick below the planet’s surface.
The diamonds may lie beneath the crust of Mercury, in the planet’s mantle.
Discovered on Mercury’s surface are patches of graphite, a form of carbon. Scientists propose that this indicates the planet once harbored a carbon-rich magma ocean. As this ocean cooled, graphite floated to the surface, creating the planet’s dark hue. This process is believed to have also formed a carbon-rich mantle beneath the crust. Contrary to earlier assumptions of graphene, researchers now suggest this mantle is composed of an even rarer carbon allotrope: diamond.
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“We calculate that, given the new estimate of the pressure at the mantle-core boundary, and knowing that Mercury is a carbon-rich planet, the carbon-bearing mineral that would form at the interface between mantle and core is diamond and not graphite,” MESSENGER team member Olivier Namur, an associate professor at KU Leuven, told Space.com. “Our study uses geophysical data collected by the NASA MESSENGER spacecraft.”
Mercury is the smallest and innermost planet in our solar system. It’s named after the Roman god of commerce, trade, and thieves. Due to its proximity to the Sun, observing Mercury from Earth can be challenging.
Due to its elliptical orbit, Mercury experiences unusual sunrises and sunsets. The Sun appears to rise, set, rise again, and then set once more within a single day. Magnetic Field: Despite being a small planet, Mercury has a surprisingly strong magnetic field. Surprisingly, there’s evidence of water ice in the shadowed craters at Mercury’s poles.
MESSENGER was the seventh Discovery-class mission, and the first spacecraft to orbit Mercury. Its primary goal was to study the geology, magnetic field, and chemical composition of the planet. It was the first mission to Mercury after Mariner 10, more than 30 years before.
MESSENGER was launched at 06:15:57 UT Aug. 3, 2004, into an initial parking orbit around Earth. After that, its PAM-D solid motor fired to put the spacecraft on an escape trajectory into heliocentric orbit at 0.92 × 1.08 AU and 6.4 degrees inclination to the ecliptic.
NASA’s MESSENGER spacecraft orbited Mercury for more than four years. Among its accomplishments, the mission determined Mercury’s surface composition, revealed its geological history, discovered details about its internal magnetic field, and verified its polar deposits are dominantly water-ice. The mission ended when MESSENGER slammed into Mercury’s surface.
