Scientists have found traces of an ancient protoplanet inside extraterrestrial diamonds that fell to the Ground about 10 years ago.
Diamonds were discovered in the small asteroid that crashed into the Nubian desert in northeast Sudan in 2008.
In a study published Tuesday in the journal Nature Communications, a team of scientists say that the tiny contents inside the diamonds indicate that they could only have formed deep inside mercury or Mars-Size protoplanet, which arose in the early days of the Solar system.
Diamonds can be formed in several ways, including in conditions of high temperature and high pressure environments similar to those found deep in the earth. They can also be formed by shock waves, resulting in a short high pressure and high temperature environment.
According Caltech geochemist Paul Azimow, shock waves produce very small diamonds, while those found in the Sudan is not too large, which means that they are formed toward the center of the object is large enough to produce the required amount of pressure and heat.
The study of the chemical composition inside diamonds, scientists have come to the conclusion that they were captured diamonds for extremely high pressure that can only be found in the planetary body between the size of mercury and Mars.
“The popular theory regarding the origin of planets is that there were a lot of small objects that collided with each other to make larger objects,” said Azimow.
Many planetary and lunar scientists believe that it was a collision between Earth and a Mars size planet that led to the formation of the moon.
Sourse: sputniknews.com
