Planet Sparkle

There's a whole entire planet made out of diamond!

Friends!  Did you know this?  Did you know there's a whole PLANET made out of DIAMOND?  It's only 40 light-years away, which is still pretty far, but I love thinkin' about that planet and how it must twinkle and shine as it goes about its celestial business.

I read all about it in my Big Board Book of Little Facts About the Universe: A Comprehensive Guide to Things That'll Make You Go 'What?!'  As it turns out, this diamond planet is called 55 Cancri e (not a very fitting name for a diamond planet, so I'm gonna call this planet Planet Sparkle) and it orbits a sunlike star that's the aforementioned 40 light-years away from where we live. 

I shall call the diamond planet Planet Sparkle!

Planet Sparkle is really close to its sunlike star, which is what you'd expect from a diamond planet, I'd think.  As a result, Planet Sparkle is literally a hot little number.  Like 3,900 degrees hot.

And I thought it was hot around here in August.  Nothing like 4,000 degrees, though!  Wooo-wheeee!

I guess how Planet Sparkle came to be Planet Sparkle is that it has what's called a carbon mantel.  Even our Earth has a mantel.  Our Earth's mantel is made up of rocky oxygen, silicon, and magnesium.  Not the stuff diamonds are made of, from my reading. 

Imagine a whole SOLAR SYSTEM of gemstone planets!

The magic of Planet Sparkle lies in its carbon mantel, and how close it is to its starlike sun.  I guess all that carbon and all that heat, and whatever geological craziness ensues on such a planet all add up to making a mass of pure diamond.  How about that?!

I'd just like to stop and think for a minute about what a planet made of pure diamond must look like.  Do you think that if you look at Planet Sparkle just so, if the sparkle off the planet's sun is blinding to any nearby space aliens.  OR, you know how you can set something on fire using a prism and the sun?  I wonder if Planet Sparkle has ever accidentally aligned with its sunlike star and set any other planets on fire.  Maybe that's where Darth Vader got the idea for the Death Star.  I don't know. 

Could you imagine a whole entire solar system of gemstone planets, Friends?  Wow!