A treasure trove of diamonds may be sown into Mercury’s cratered crust.
Billions of years of meteorite impacts may have flash-baked much of Mercury’s surface into the glittery gemstones, planetary scientist Kevin Cannon reported March 10 at the Lunar and Planetary Science Conference in The Woodlands, Texas. His computer simulations predict that such impacts may have transformed about one-third of the little planet’s crust into a diamond stockpile many times that of Earth’s.
Diamonds are forged under immense pressures and temperatures. On Earth, the gemstones crystallize deep underground — at least 150 kilometers down — then ride to the surface during volcanic eruptions (SN: 9/14/20). But studies of meteorites suggest diamonds can also form during impact.
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