Diamond Planet Discovered by Astronomers

Which is the biggest known diamond in the universe? You probably don’t know the answer. How about this: How big is the biggest known diamond of the universe? You would know as you read this article.
An international team of scientists has discovered a planet that can, well, be the biggest diamond ever known to mankind. The yet-to-be-named planet which lies 4000 light years away from the earth towards the centre of our galaxy is 55,000 kms in diameter.
 
 
The ‘diamond planet’ was initially detected as an unusual star in our Milky Way. Gradually, astronomers discovered that it is probably the left-over of a massive star. But, it would have lost its outer layers and 99.9% of its outer mass to the star it orbits. The history of its evolution and its extreme density lead scientists to believe that it is made of carbon and a little bit of Oxygen. And, the intense gravitational force would make the carbon crystalline which essentially means that it is a huge diamond or at least large part of it would be made of diamond.
 
There are many interesting facts about the planet and about the star it orbits. Since the planet orbits its star, named PSR J1719-1438, at a distance of around 6,00,000 km, a year on the planet would be around two hours and ten minutes only! The pulsar star that the ‘diamond planet’ orbits is also exciting. It is a very fast spinning star called a millisecond pulsar which rotates more than 10,000 times per minute! Interestingly, being a pulsar star, it’s only around 20 km in radius which means that it is far smaller than the planet which orbits around it! And, despite being of such a minuscule size, the star has mass that is 1.4 times that of our sun.
 
Let’s assume that space-travel becomes a reality in future. Will the ‘diamond planet’ be a tourist planet of us, especially females? Will there be a world-war to exploit the diamond planet? Will the prices of diamonds fall considerably?
 
There are conflicting opinions on how the planet will appear from a closer look. While, it is widely believed that the planet might not actually be as shiny as a large diamond from a closer look, some believe that there is no reason why the planet won’t shine if we throw light on it. Its orbiting times definitely suggest that it must be made of carbon - unlike other big planets like Jupiter known to us so far which are made of Hydrogen and Helium. As of now, it’s not possible to know how exactly the planet will look like. Scientists also suggest that it’s kind of rare for such circumstances to happen that causes the formation of such a planet. So, there might not be many diamond planets around in the universe.
 
The ‘diamond planet’ is believed to be older than our own solar systems. And, the planet is also expected to last longer than the sun and the earth. Isn’t it rightly said it’s officially proved that diamonds are forever!
 
So, the answer to the initially asked questions is: The biggest known diamond is a 1031-carat diamond which is of the size of a planet!
 
The discovery of this planet was reported in the journal Science last week.