The diamonds are in heaven and can explain life on Earth
The diamonds are abundant in the cosmic vacuum and its analysis could help unravel the mysteries about the origin of life on Earth, said NASA scientists today, adding that they use to study the Spitzer Space Telescope.
Scientists at the Ames Research Center NASA employ ultrasensitive and infrared eyes of Spitzer to delve further into this cosmic theory, said the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) of that entity. He added that through computer simulations, scientists have developed a strategy that will help them find diamonds in space that measure just one nanometer (one millionth of a millimeter).
Although it would take 25,000 of these tiny diamonds to create one the size of a grain of sand, small particles could provide valuable clues about the evolution of carbon molecules that are the basis of life on Earth, scientists say.
In fact, the study of the tiny space diamonds started to be studied seriously in the 1980s, when his presence was uncovered during the analysis of meteorites found on Earth’s surface.
According to astronomers, three percent of the carbon found in meteorites contain a form of nanodiamonds.
If meteorites are a reflection of the dust content space, calculations show that just one gram of cosmic dust and gas may contain up to 10,000 trillion nanodiamonds those, according to a statement from JPL.
According to Charles Bauschlicher, a scientist at Ames Research Center, the problem of finding the diamonds was the ignorance of their infrared and electronic properties.
To resolve this problem, Bauschlicher and his team of scientists used a software to simulate the conditions of the interstellar medium (the space between the stars) it would be full of diamonds.
With this method found that the space diamonds shine in infrared spectra from 3.4 to 3.5 microns and 6 to 10 microns.
This is where comes in the Spitzer telescope, which separates the infrared spectrometer and allows scientists to analyze the content of each molecule.
Scientists also suspect that there were no other diamonds located in space because they did not know where to look and by what means.
The astronomers determined that the best place to find those diamonds would be very near a hot star.
The next step in the search for diamonds is to determine how spatial form in the environment of interstellar space.
According to Louis Allamandola, a scientist at Ames, the spatial conditions that cause them are diametrically opposed to those on Earth.
On our planet, diamonds are formed from molecules of carbon under tremendous pressures and temperatures.
In the space found in cold molecular clouds where pressures and temperatures are billions of times lower (about 240 degrees Celsius), said JPL.
“Now we know where we need to find these nanodiamonds, infrared telescopes like Spitzer will help us gain a greater understanding of their life in space,” said Allamandola.
November 25, 2009
Tags: cosmic vacuum, diamonds, find diamonds, nanodiamonds, NASA Posted in: Educations
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