Mercury's surface is covered in diamond dust & Asteroid discovered two hours before impact & Exoplanet research hit a major milestone

 


Mercury's surface is covered in diamond dust


Mercury, home to the Carnegie Institution of Washington, was once a much more violent environment. Due to the extreme temperature differences between its daytime and nighttime sides, it is still not ideal. Even though we wouldn't want to live there, it might be fun to go treasure hunting there. 


Recent simulations of Mercury's surface and impact interactions over the past four billion years have revealed that the planet's surface may be coated in microscopic diamonds, as Kevin Cannon explained at the 53rd Lunar and Planetary Science Conference. 


Mercury was covered in a global magma ocean when it first formed. Graphite formed within the magma and eventually rose to the surface, forming a hundred of meters-thick floating graphite crust. Asteroid impacts occurred frequently during the first billion years after the solar system formed, each of which could have transformed that graphite into diamond immediately. 


These would not be the large, transparent gems that we are accustomed to seeing in jewelry, unlike diamonds on Earth. Diamond dust of a microscopic size would have been dispersed across the surface instead. If these estimates are correct, Mercury could be holding a diamond hoard sixteen times larger than Earth's. Additional information about the composition of the planet's surface may be gleaned from future missions to the planet


Asteroid discovered two hours before impact



Regarding asteroid impacts, on March 11, 2022, one landed on Earth. Fortunately for us all, it wasn't a planet-destroying object like those that kill dinosaurs and populate movie plots. 2020 EB5 burned up in the atmosphere off the coast of Greenland and had a diameter of only about 7 feet. 


Only five impactors have been detected by astronomers before a planet has been hit in 2020 EB5. In the solar system, objects of that size are not very common, and they frequently come into contact with our planet. Because the search area is infinitely wide, and they are relatively faint, their small size makes it extremely difficult to anticipate their presence. 


NASA takes the task of finding and following larger objects that come into contact with Earth very seriously because they could have significant effects on humanity and the rest of the planet's life. After 2020 EB5 was first discovered by astronomers at the P-I S Z K-E S T E-T Observatory, the Center for Near Earth Object Studies at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory was involved in tracking it. The Center for Near Earth Object Studies is tasked with keeping an eye on the skies for any threats from other planets.


We should hope we are given more than two hours' notice in the event of a larger threat


Exoplanet research hit a major milestone



A relatively recent development in astronomy is the search for planets outside our solar system. According to Space, the first known exoplanet was only discovered in 1992. The discovery of exoplanets is still in its infancy, but the field has grown quickly. 


Humanity has been able to see further into our universe and back in time than ever before thanks to telescopes like Hubble, TRAPPIST, and the JWST, which was launched just recently. The number of confirmed exoplanets has steadily increased thanks to robust tools and consistently improved detection techniques, to the point where planets are now added to the registry in batches rather than individually. 


NASA received the most recent batch of confirmed planets on March 21, 2022. In most cases, multiple observations are needed to confirm that the result was not an anomaly or an error in the experiment. There were 65 new worlds in the batch, making the total number of exoplanets above 5,000. 


Hot Jupiter's, gas giants orbiting close to their parent star, account for a significant portion of the exoplanets we have discovered thus far. However, that appears to be the result of our observational methods and is not necessarily indicative of the most common types of planets. According to NASA, we have also found so-called super Earths and mini Neptune, among other exotic planetary types. We won't even know it when we reach 10,000 planets at the current rate

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