[HN Gopher] Modeling study proposes a diamond layer at the core-...
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Modeling study proposes a diamond layer at the core-mantle boundary
on Mercury
Author : PaulHoule
Score : 48 points
Date : 2024-07-20 00:03 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (phys.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (phys.org)
| A_D_E_P_T wrote:
| This means that Mercury might be a carbon planet or quasi carbon
| planet: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_planet
|
| If that's the case, somebody ought to update the wikipedia page.
|
| What might come as a surprise to the average engagement ring
| shopper is that diamond is a wildly abundant material in the
| universe. On that scale it's nothing special -- possibly it's
| just slightly less ubiquitous than silica sand. It's the heavy
| metals, like gold and even tungsten, that are rare and weird.
| yieldcrv wrote:
| I don't think anyone is surprised by that. The price is the
| price.
| jajko wrote:
| > The price is the price.
|
| What does this mean? That you just have to suck it up and
| shell out 3 salaries or you are not worthy or manly enough?
| Anybody old enough who has seen tons of various marriage crap
| knows that this increases quality of marriage by exactly 0%
| (at least in positive direction, negative can be debated but
| I'd say its mildly above 0), and same effect goes into
| 'durability' of it.
|
| But for men, its a fantastic litmus paper - even if you
| explain this and the requirement remains strict, thats a
| massive personality red flag, which never ever goes alone.
| For me personally it would be no-go since life is too short
| to make such mistakes, but I am out of these games hopefully
| for good.
| lazide wrote:
| Project much?
| yieldcrv wrote:
| It means that if you are in the market for an actual
| diamond, then you will be presented with a price and have
| no way of altering what the market price is.
|
| If you want moissanite or something else, or dream of
| asteroid mining to flood the market on earth, that has
| nothing to do with anybody else in the market for diamonds.
| TaylorAlexander wrote:
| I think the understanding that they are not rare and that
| the price is entirely an extortionary corporate fiction
| to collect huge profits will influence one's desire to
| pay the high price.
|
| Like if you buy a gold ring, I suspect its cost will be
| pretty related to the base price of commodity gold, the
| labor involved in creating it, and a reasonable markup
| for the company to survive. But it is too
| commoditizatized for it to have the super high prices
| diamonds have. Knowing that diamonds are horribly
| overpriced will reduce some people's desire to actually
| buy one. So telling people this helps save people money.
| dmix wrote:
| It's equally valuable because it's symbolic culturally
| and a status symbol.
|
| > I think the understanding that they are not rare and
| that the price is entirely an extortionary corporate
| fiction to collect huge profits will influence one's
| desire to pay the high price.
|
| That's like telling people their Gucci bag actually costs
| $100 to manufacture and thinking it will make them stop
| buying them. People do things to signal social status.
| It's never been a rational thing so rationality isn't
| going to fix it.
|
| If we flood the market with diamonds people will find the
| next status symbol to cling on to. You can try to stop it
| at gun point like the Soviets/Chinese did but that still
| never stopped the remaining few with status from engaging
| in it (see NK today).
|
| Humans are just flawed biology who do dumb stuff and
| there will always be another person who will give it to
| them in exchange for their money and another person to
| desire what they now have.
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| Good points. And cynically I'll add: I kind of like that
| people for whom status is all important self-advertise
| the type of person they are.
| ziofill wrote:
| You're not wrong, but the price of diamonds isn't due to
| their scarcity, but rather control od supply. De Beers
| controls the supply and therefore the price.
| dmix wrote:
| It's not that complicated.
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| Odd to see gender show up in the thread.
|
| Anecdotal: am a guy, married a woman, no diamond ring was
| ever in the picture.
| rdtsc wrote:
| > The price is the price.
|
| Try selling the ring for the same price. You'll quickly find
| out that the price is not the price. And there's a reason for
| it, but that's a discussion for another day.
| adrian_b wrote:
| Not really.
|
| The carbon-rich planets described in the Wikipedia article have
| formed by condensation from gases in which carbon was more
| abundant than oxygen, which happens in the gases from which
| some stellar systems have formed.
|
| The Solar System has formed by condensation from gases where
| there was more oxygen than carbon, and this remains true for
| Mercury.
|
| Mercury has a somewhat higher proportion of carbon than other
| planets, because much oxygen has been lost in space, as a
| component of water and of other easy to vaporize oxides, due to
| the high temperature of its surface. Even so, it contains much
| more oxygen in silicates, than carbon.
|
| The core of Mercury is made of iron alloy, like all planet
| cores. This study supposes that the liquid core has been
| saturated in carbon. In this case, when the core has
| solidified, it must have expelled a part of the dissolved
| carbon at the surface of the core. Due to the high pressure,
| the expelled carbon must have formed diamond, instead of
| forming graphite, as it happens at the solidification of
| smelted pig iron (after a sufficient time, so that any
| metastable carbides will decompose).
| dotancohen wrote:
| To those looking at the fine diagrams: CMB in this context is
| obviously not cosmic background radiation, it is core/mantle
| boundary.
| JorgeGT wrote:
| I was thinking of the BFE...
| tsujamin wrote:
| Luckily The Core (2003) gave us a realistic visualisation of what
| this would look like ;)
| booleandilemma wrote:
| It's a dumb movie but that scene has stuck with me over the
| years.
| pavel_lishin wrote:
| Now I'm imagining an 80s-era scifi story that comes up with a
| reason to blow Mercury's crust off, revealing a planet-sized
| disco ball...
|
| Come see it all! The system with the Ringed Planet, the Red-
| Spotted Giant, and most of all, the Mirror Planet!
| ImHereToVote wrote:
| Seems more like a 2020 era stupid sci-fi story
| staticautomatic wrote:
| Fun fact: it rains diamonds in Uranus (high pressure plus methane
| atmosphere = diamond precipitation)
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