Matthew Bailes and his team in Australia announced the discovery of a planet made of diamonds in the latest issue of
Science . Its name is technically PSR J1719 -1438, but some media reports have dubbed it
Lucy. It's the most dense extrasolar plant to date, with a mass approximately equal to that of Jupiter, but 20 times more dense than the gas giant. It's more than quadruple Earth's density, and almost twice as dense as lead. The diamond planet is very close to its star - an entire day takes only 2 hours, and the orbit would fit conveniently inside our sun. The planet is apparently what is left over when one part of a binary star pushes all the fusionable fuel away from it's partner. It's more than 4,000 light years away from Earth, so no one is likely to pick up continent-sized jewelry there anytime soon.
