Is the center of Jupiter really an Earth-sized diamond as claimed by Arthur C. Clarke?

We don't really know. It is very hot, possibly as high as 56,000 K, and very dense. The central core pressure is estimated to be 100 million times the atmospheric pressure at the earth's surface.It is expected from a variety of planet formation scenarios that the planet has a rocky core of about 10-15 times the mass of the Earth, but on top of this is a seething 'ocean' of metallic hydrogen and other exotic states of hydrogen and helium, its chief constituents. Whether the central rocky core is in the form of a 'diamond' or not is not something that could be easily anticipated from the mathematical modeling of the planet's interior. In other words, Arthur's guess is as good as anyones!


Copyright 1997 Dr. Sten Odenwald

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