Note to users. If you're seeing this message, it means that your browser cannot find this page's style/presentation instructions -- or possibly that you are using a browser that does not support current Web standards. Find out more about why this message is appearing, and what you can do to make your experience of our site the best it can be.
Active Motif, Inc

Site Tools

  • AAAS
  • Subscribe
  • Feedback

Site Search

Search Advanced

Science 1 October 1999:
Vol. 286. no. 5437, p. 25
DOI: 10.1126/science.286.5437.25a
Prev | Table of Contents | Next

News of the Week

PLANETARY SCIENCE:
Neptune May Crush Methane Into Diamonds

Richard A. Kerr

Laboratory researchers simulating the hellish interiors of Neptune and Uranus, where heat and pressures can be far more intense than in the depths of Earth, are finding, among other surprises, tiny flecks of diamond. On page 100 of this issue of Science, a mineral physicist and her colleagues report that methane--a major constituent of Neptune and Uranus's deep interiors--decomposes far more easily than predicted when it is heated and squeezed in the laboratory. That decomposition, which produces diamonds and complex organic matter, could have altered the chemical composition and internal churning of those planets.

Read the Full Text

ADVERTISEMENT
Click Me!

ADVERTISEMENT
Click Me!

To Advertise     Find Products

Science. ISSN 0036-8075 (print), 1095-9203 (online)