Re: OT: Marcury has a layer of diamond 10 miles thick, NASA spacecraft finds

On 31/07/2024 06:59, Jan Panteltje wrote:

On a sunny day (Tue, 30 Jul 2024 10:46:32 -0700) it happened john larkin
<jlarkin_highland_tech> wrote in <ik9iaj9g0jp202thk66cgaeh0d24j380af@4ax.com>:
 

On Tue, 30 Jul 2024 10:46:45 GMT, Jan Panteltje <alien@comet.invalid>
wrote:
>

Mercury has a layer of diamond 10 miles thick, NASA spacecraft finds
https://www.space.com/mercury-diamond-layer-10-miles-thick-nasa-messenger#main
>
Now there is an incentive to go!

>
Diamond, like gold, is valuable because it's rare. Accessing cubic
miles of diamonds would trash its value.
>

 Sure, but the first sample return will pay for itself.
And marketing those as 'the first Mercury diamonds' may help too.
NASA always asking for more budget.. there you go!
Few consumers want moon dust...
 I know moon rocks was a big business.. Some got stolen and resold,
guy got caught.

Some collectors will pay silly money for anything rare enough. The main use for moon rock was to determine the age of the Moon or rather the time of last melting of the pieces of it that they brought back.
I reckon less than 1kg all up of moon rock was actually used destructively in this way - the rest is sat in museum cabinets (and in a few professors trophy cabinets). Looks very much like terrestrial basalt to the trained and untrained eye alike (think tarmac carpark rock).
Iron meteorites with huge crystals in are much harder to fake.
--
Martin Brown