Move over, Hope Diamond! The world’s most famous gems may have a new competitor—a planet thought to be made largely of diamond. This extraordinary “super-Earth,” known as 55 Cancri e, orbits a nearby star within our Milky Way galaxy. Discovered in 2004, scientists have since analyzed its mass, radius, and the composition of its host star, leading them to conclude that this rocky world is rich in carbon, likely in the form of diamond and graphite, as well as elements like iron, silicon carbide, and potentially silicates.
Astonishingly, estimates suggest that up to one-third of 55 Cancri e’s mass could be pure diamond.
Lead researcher Nikku Madhusudhan from Yale University highlighted the uniqueness of this planet’s composition, explaining that it offers “our first glimpse of a rocky world with a fundamentally different chemistry from Earth.” Instead of water and granite, its surface may be covered in graphite and diamond.
Read More: NASA Unveils New Cosmic Images of Stars and Galaxies
Although diamond-rich planets had been theorized, 55 Cancri e is the first identified around a sun-like star. Unlike Earth, which has minimal carbon and an oxygen-rich interior, 55 Cancri e is dominated by carbon. Yale geophysicist Kanani Lee noted that Earth’s carbon content is “less than a part in a thousand by mass,” underscoring the vast difference.
Classified as a super-Earth, 55 Cancri e has a radius twice that of Earth and a mass eight times greater. It completes a full orbit around its star in just 18 hours, keeping it dangerously close, with surface temperatures reaching 3,900 degrees Fahrenheit (2,100 degrees Celsius) — likely too extreme to support any known form of life.
