Mercury may have a thick layer of diamonds hundreds of miles below its surface, a new study shows. The findings, published June 14 in the journal Nature Communications, may help solve mysteries about the planet’s composition and peculiar magnetic field.
Mercury is filled with mysteries. For one, it has a magnetic field. Although it’s much weaker than Earth’s, the magnetism is unexpected because the planet is tiny and appears to be geologically inactive. Mercury also has unusually dark surface patches that NASA’s Messenger mission identified as graphite, a form of carbon.
That latter feature is what sparked the curiosity of Yanhao Lin, a staff scientist at the Center for High Pressure Science and Technology Advanced Research in Beijing and co-author of the study. Mercury’s extremely high carbon content “made me realize that something special probably happened within its interior,” he said in a statement.
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