Liquid diamond oceans on neptune and uranus!

Hi i'm new here so as my first post i'd like to share something i read recently:

http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2010-01/diamond-oceans-may-cover-neptune-and-uranus

In summary, scientists have melted diamonds with laser and discovered that neptune and uranus have the right conditions to melt diamond (high pressure, 10% carbon atmoshpere) Presonally i think this is cool but good luck mining those diamonds under those crazy conditions

I'm not terribly convinced, to be honest. I would suspect the amount of carbon present in the Ice giants would be low (lower than what would allow for the creation of an "ocean" at least).

Nonetheless, if there are even icebergs it is a very interesting discovery. I wonder if there is anyway for these resources to be efficiently enough transported as to compete with synthetic diamonds?

Wouldn't it just be easier to take carbon and put it in a laboratory environment? (as opposed to diving into Uranus or Neptune and hauling some heavy material up such a steep gravity well?)

My initial hunch would be that the presence of other elements than carbon in the interior is going to mess this scenario up, but there isn't much known about chemistry under such conditions.

i actually think that this may be true, because diamond is pure carbon and if the atmoshpere is 10% carbon, along with the proper diamond melting conditions than why not!

The atmosphere of Neptune is most certainly not 20% carbon. It's ~80% hydrogen, ~19% helium, with small amounts methane, hydrogen deuteride, and ethane, with ammonia, water, and ammonium hydrosulfide ices. The atmosphere of Uranus is similar.

Sirius_Alpha wrote:Wouldn't it just be easier to take carbon and put it in a laboratory environment? (as opposed to diving into Uranus or Neptune and hauling some heavy material up such a steep gravity well?)

Well i don't know whats going throught the minds of the scientists that prooposd his idea but i'm guessing that mining in such large quantities would be easier than making that equivalent amount in a lab. It might not sound realistic at present day but in the future it may very well possible.

Sirius_Alpha wrote:The atmosphere of Neptune is most certainly not 20% carbon. It's ~80% hydrogen, ~19% helium, with small amounts methane, hydrogen deuteride, and ethane, with ammonia, water, and ammonium hydrosulfide ices. The atmosphere of Uranus is similar.

Really? i never actually thought about the ACTUAL contents of the atmospheres of Neptune & Uranus. I just thought that since a reliable source like popsci said it has carbon than its ture. If this were posted in an newspaper than i'd have doubts about the truth, but a science magazine? why would they lie?

Looks like a question of bulk composition versus the outer part of the atmosphere which can be observed directly.

The deep interior of the planet is definitely going to have a different composition. There may be some carbon there, but I would expect the core to be mostly nickel and iron. As Lazarus said, with the contamination of multiple other species in the deep interior of the planet, finding enough pure carbon to make a diamond may be difficult.

While I fully believe that the interior pressure and temperature can allow for the creation of diamonds, I'm not so sure the chemistry conditions there will allow for it.

But I'm not terribly good with chemistry.

I think it's more likely to find carbon as frozen methane crystal on outer gas planets, rather as diamond or lonsdaleite phases. If pressure and heat conditions are satisfied (doubtful, since those planets, even if active and with some kind of interal heat, are way much too cold to reach metamorphic temperatures.

Probably extrasolar planets could, especially those in tight orbits. But you should have a carbon-rich one, if you find it...