An image shared nearly 300,000 times on Thursday says there’s a planet “made out of diamond.”
The planet, 55 Cancri e, is approximately 40 light years away from Earth in the Cancer constellation. It was discovered about three years ago, and it has a radius about twice the size of earth.
“The new planet is far denser than any other known so far and consists largely of carbon. Because it is so dense, scientists calculate the carbon must be crystalline, so a large part of this strange world will effectively be diamond,” says Reuters in a report in 2011.
Matthew Bailes of Swinburne University of Technology in Melbourne, said at the time: “The evolutionary history and amazing density of the planet all suggest it is comprised of carbon -- i.e. a massive diamond orbiting a neutron star every two hours in an orbit so tight it would fit inside our own Sun.”
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