Mercury’s hidden diamonds!
Mercury is the smallest planet, but it might have something big underneath—diamonds! Scientists used data from NASA’s MESSENGER spacecraft to figure this out.
Imagine a layer of shiny diamonds under the ground, 18 kilometres thick! Scientists think these diamonds might have formed when Mercury was born billions of years ago.
Mercury has a giant metal core and is still full of mysteries. Who knows what else is hidden there?
How did researchers figure this out?
When Mercury was formed a long time ago, it had a crust of graphite floating over a magma ocean. Scientists recreated this environment using a cool machine called an anvil press.
They mixed things in a graphite container and subjected it to extremely high pressure and heat, just like inside Mercury billions of years ago. Guess what? The graphite turned into diamonds!
This discovery suggests there could be a layer of diamonds hiding beneath Mercury’s surface.
About NASA’s MESSENGER.
NASA’s MESSENGER (Mercury Surface, Space Environment, Geochemistry and Ranging) was a super cool spaceship that went to Mercury! Its job was to learn all about Mercury’s rocks, what it’s made of, etc.
MESSENGER launched in 2004 and sent lots of amazing information back to Earth. After many years of exploring, it finally ran out of fuel and crashed into Mercury in 2015.
