Diamond Rain, Decoded: Twenty Years of Disagreement, Solved

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Anna: Hey, everyone. Welcome to today's Astronomy

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AstroDailyPod. I'm Anna.

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Avery: And I'm avery. It's Thursday, August 27th.

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Series five, episode 178.

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Anna: Bigger show than usual today. Huw,

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our human producer, has given us the green

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light to run long because there's genuinely a

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lot going on. We've got a lab experiment that

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recreated the inside of an ice giant, one

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of the strangest origin storeys in modern

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astronomy hardware. A heads up on some actual

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space weather this weekend. An AI that can

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see a solar storm coming before it arrives.

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A quick word on SpaceX's enormous new

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plans for the Gulf coast, and a, uh, lunar

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eclipse that's happening literally tonight.

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Avery: That's a lot of universe for one episode.

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Anna: It is. Let's get into it.

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Avery: Okay, start us off. The headline is

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intriguing. Scientists recreated diamond rain

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solving a 20 year mystery. But what did they

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actually do here?

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Anna: Physicists at Lawrence Livermore National

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Laboratory just settled an argument that's

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been running in planetary science for about

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20 years. And they did it by essentially

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recreating the inside of Neptune in a

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lab for about a billionth of a second at a

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time.

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Avery: A, uh, billionth of a second doesn't sound

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like much to work with.

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Anna: It's not, but it's enough if you know what

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you're looking for. The team, led by

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LLNL physicist Marius Millett,

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took tiny diamond samples to the Omega Laser

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Facility that's at the University of

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Rochester's Laboratory for Laser Energetics,

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and used intense lasers to vaporise the outer

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layer of each diamond, which drives a

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shockwave straight through the rest of it.

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That shock wave crushes the diamond to

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pressures around 1 terapascal. That's

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roughly three times the pressure at the

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centre of the Earth and higher than what

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you'd find at the centre of Neptune or

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Uranus, while flash heating it to

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temperatures hotter than the surface of the

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Sun.

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Avery: Um, and that's meant to simulate what? The

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inside of an ice giant?

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Anna: Exactly. That. Neptune and Uranus are called

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ice giants because under the clouds, they're

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thought to have deep mantles of compressed

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water, methane and ammonia under pressures

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and temperatures so extreme that ordinary

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chemistry stops behaving the way it does up

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here. Back in 2017, an earlier

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LLNL led experiment first showed that

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carbon squeezed under those conditions

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crystallises into nano diamonds,

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literal diamond rain falling through the

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interior of these planets, possibly for

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billions of years, and possibly forming thick

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diamond layers around their rocky cores. That

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was the original headline. What this new

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study nails down is something narrower but

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more important. Exactly what temperature

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diamond itself melts at once. You're that

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deep.

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Avery: Why would that be uncertain? Diamond's

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diamond.

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Anna: Because at those pressures, you can't just

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stick a thermometer in it. You have to infer

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the melting point indirectly. And for two

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decades, lab measurements and quantum

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mechanical computer simulations disagreed

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with each other by close to a thousand

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degrees. Nobody could say for certain which

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one was right. Millet's team used much

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sharper x ray diffraction diagnostics than

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earlier experiments had access to,

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essentially getting a cleaner atomic scale

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snapshot of the diamond mid shock, and found

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that the real answer lines up almost exactly

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with what the quantum simulations predicted,

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not the older lab estimates.

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Avery: So the computers were right and the old

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experiments were off.

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Anna: That's the headline finding, yes. And there's

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a second result buried in there that's

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arguably just as interesting. The carbon

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atoms stayed locked in their normal diamond

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crystal structure right up until melting

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actually began. No weird in between

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phase, the kind some models had predicted. It

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goes solid diamond, then straight to liquid

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carbon cleanly. And they confirmed something

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poetic while they were at it. Just like ice

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floats on liquid water, solid diamond floats

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on liquid carbon. Under these conditions,

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same underlying physics, wildly different

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substance.

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Avery: Diamond icebergs floating in an ocean

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of molten carbon inside a

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planet.

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Anna: Which is a genuinely wild sentence to be able

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to say and have it be real science. But

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here's where it stops being just a curiosity

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about ice giants. This result actually

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matters for something happening right here on

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Earth. Fusion energy research.

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Avery: How does melting diamond connect to

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fusion?

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Anna: Inertial confinement fusion, the approach

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used at facilities like the National Ignition

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Facility, works by using powerful

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lasers to compress a small fuel capsule

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often built with a diamond shell, until the

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fuel inside gets hot and dense enough to

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fuse. Getting that compression right is

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incredibly delicate. Jock the capsule too

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hard, too fast, and you introduce

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instabilities that waste energy and can even

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ruin the implosion. Knowing the precise

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melting point of the diamond shell, the

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number this study just pinned down lets

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researchers use a gentler, slower initial

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shock while still guaranteeing the shell

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fully melts at exactly the right moment.

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Avery: And a, uh, gentler shock means what?

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Anna: In practical terms, a more compressible

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fuel capsule. And models suggest that

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alone could roughly triple the energy gain

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from these fusion implosions. More energy out

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for the same energy in without needing

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bigger, more expensive lasers to do it. It's

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a genuinely rare case of a planetary science

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result feeding directly and immediately

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into an entirely different field's

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engineering problem.

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Avery: So one experiment, two totally different

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payoffs, how ice giants actually work

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inside, and a Possible tune up for

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fusion reactors here on Earth.

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Anna: That's the shape of it. The findings are

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published in Nature Physics and the team is

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describing the new melting point measurements

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as atomic scale benchmarks. A reference

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point other researchers can now build their

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own simulations against for modelling extreme

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matter anywhere from planetary interiors

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to fusion capsules to eventually other

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worlds we haven't even looked at closely yet.

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Avery: A billionth of a second of lap time

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unlocking 20 years of disagreement.

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Anna: Sometimes that's all physics needs. The right

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billionth of a second pointed at the right

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question.

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Avery: Alright, next one's got a bit of everything.

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Cold War hardware, a, uh, cancelled spy

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programme and a telescope launching in three

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days.

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Anna: The Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope is

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genuinely days away Now, Sunday morning,

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August 30, 7:26am, um,

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Eastern on a SpaceX Falcon Heavy from

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Kennedy Space Centre. We gave Roman its full

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feature treatment a couple of days ago, so

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today we wanted to do something a little

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different and tell you where the telescope's

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hardware actually came from because it's one

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of the stranger origin storeys in modern

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astronomy. And it's been getting fresh

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attention this week as launch gets close.

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Avery: I feel like I've heard this before, something

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about a, uh, spy satellite.

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Anna: You have, and it's true. Back in

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1999, the National Reconnaissance Office,

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the US intelligence agency that builds and

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operates spy satellites, kicked off a

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programme called Future Imagery Architecture,

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contracting Boeing to build a next generation

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family of optical and radar reconnaissance

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satellites. It expanded further after 911

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on the back of heightened national security

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spending. But by 2005 the whole thing

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had collapsed under billions of dollars in

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cost overruns. The New York Times at the time

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called it, and I'm quoting directly, perhaps

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the most spectacular and expensive

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failure in the 50 year history of American

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spy satellite projects.

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Avery: So a, uh, failed spy satellite programme

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Anna: just sat there for a few years?

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Yes. Then in 2010 the National

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Academy of Sciences decadal survey.

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Basically the astronomy communities ra wish

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list for the next decade of big missions

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named what would become the Roman Space

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Telescope as its absolute top priority.

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NASA announced in 2011 that it

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planned to repurpose leftover NRO

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hardware for the mission. And in 2012

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the NRO formally donated two

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complete unused telescopes from the

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cancelled programme to NASA. Each one

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had an optical telescope assembly, primary

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mirror, nine additional mirrors structure,

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and all roughly comparable to Hubble's

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own optics, and each valued at around

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$250 million.

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Avery: Free telescopes essentially sort of,

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though free

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Anna: undersells how much work it took. The

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electronics had to be entirely stripped out

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and replaced. Since a spy satellite's

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internals aren't built for open astrophysics

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and large sections of the original technical

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documentation stayed classified and

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redacted. So Roman's engineers had to

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reverse engineer parts of a system built by a

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completely different team for a completely

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different purpose. Experts still genuinely

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disagree on whether repurposing the hardware

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actually saved NASA money. Overall, once you

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count all that rework, NASA still holds on

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to the second donated telescope.

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Incidentally, no announced plans for it yet.

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Avery: That's a wild pedigree for a mission about to

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go hunt dark energy and exoplanets.

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Anna: It really is Cold War era spy

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satellite optics sitting unused for the

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better part of a decade now, three days from

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launch as one of the most capable wide field

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observatories ever built. As of today,

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the encapsulated telescope has moved into

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SpaceX's hangar at Launch Complex

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39A and is being mated to its

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Falcon Heavy this week with a launch

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readiness review scheduled for Tomorrow,

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Friday the 28th. To confirm everything's go

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for Sunday will be all over the actual

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launch when it happens.

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Avery: From reconnaissance to cosmology in one

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very unlikely career change.

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Anna: Not a bad way to spend a second life.

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Avery: Quick update on something we flagged as, uh,

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a maybe earlier this week. It's not a maybe

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anymore, right?

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Anna: Tuesday's M M6.9 flare out of

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Sunspot Region 4513 sent

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a coronal mass ejection our way, and at

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the time forecasters were only calling it an

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outside chance of minor geomagnetic

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storming that's firmed up. NOAA's Space

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Weather Prediction Centre has now issued an

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official G2 that's moderate on their

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five step storm scale geomagnetic storm

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watch for this Friday, August 28th.

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Avery: What chains between outside chance and an

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actual watch?

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Anna: Better tracking of the CME's trajectory and

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speed plus a second factor stacking on top

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of it there's a coronal hole high speed

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solar wind stream also forecast to hit

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Earth's Magnetosphere starting the 27th.

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Essential tonight with the CME's

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effects layering in on top of that starting

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the 28th. Noah's language is that these

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disturbances are anticipated to affect

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geospace across both days rather than

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a single glancing blow.

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Avery: Does a G2 watch mean anything for people on

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the ground, or is this purely a space weather

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nerd milestone?

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Anna: At AH G2 levels you can get some minor

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fluctuations in high latitude power grids

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and a bit of extra drag on satellites in low

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orbit, but the part most listeners will

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actually care about is Aurora, uh, D2

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storms can push the aurora oval down into the

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northern tier US States, southern Canada,

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the UK and similar latitudes in Europe.

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It's genuinely a, uh, get outside and look

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night if you're up there.

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Avery: And for us down here, same answer

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Anna: as earlier this week. G2 is still a modest

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storm. And modest storms don't typically push

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the Aurora australis much past Tasmania on

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a good night. We don't have anything in this

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forecast suggesting it goes further than

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that. Worth a glance at the southern horizon

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tonight and tomorrow if you're somewhere

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dark. But we wouldn't build plans around it

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Avery: from maybe to NOAA officially watching it

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in about 48 hours.

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Anna: That's space weather forecasting for you. It

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sharpens fast as the event actually gets

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close.

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Avery: Since we're already talking space weather and

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there's a genuinely clever piece of research

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that ties right into this.

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Anna: It does. And the timing's almost too neat.

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A team led by researchers at the New Jersey

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Institute of Technology has built an AI model

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nicknamed early detect that can spot the

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hidden precursor signs of a new solar active

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region forming before it's even visible on

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the sun's surface. An average of about

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9.24 hours ahead of time.

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Avery: Nine hours before a sunspot region even

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shows up. How do you predict something before

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it exists?

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Anna: You look underneath essentially active

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regions. The sunspot clusters that produce

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flares and CMEs like the one we just talked

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about don't just pop into existence. There

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are subtle acoustic signals and shifts in the

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sun's subsurface magnetic field that happen

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first as new magnetic flux rises up from

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deeper inside the sun towards the surface.

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Those signals are faint and easy to miss by

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eye. But the NJIT team trained a, uh,

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transformer based AI model, the same

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underlying architecture behind tools like

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ChatGPT on hourly acoustic

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power maps and magnetic field data from

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NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory to pick

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them out.

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Avery: Transformer models reading the sun's insides

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like they'd read a sentence.

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Anna: Pretty much the same basic idea just applied

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to helioseismic data instead of language.

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One detail the researchers highlighted that

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genuinely surprised them. A, uh, standard

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filtering step that normally cleans up noisy

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data actually hurt the model's performance

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here because it was stripping out faint

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fluctuations. That turned out to be exactly

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the signal the AI needed to catch early.

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Leaving the noise in made the predictions

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better.

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Avery: So where does this actually go next? Is this

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feeding into real forecasts soon?

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Anna: Not quite yet, and the team's been upfront

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about that. They described early detect as

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not yet ready for Real time forecasting and

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it still needs validation against a lot more

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solar events before anyone could rely on it

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operationally. But the ceiling here is

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obvious. Today's space weather warnings like

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the G2 watch we just covered, mostly start

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once a CME is already on its way. A

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tool that can flag the storm producing region

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before it's even fully formed pushes that

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warning window back even further. The team's

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also released a public dataset called Solared

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and an interactive platform so other

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researchers can build on this directly.

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Avery: Getting ahead of the sun's mood swings before

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they start.

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Anna: That's the goal. We'll keep an eye on it as

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it develops.

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Avery: Last thing before Skywatch and it's a big

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one, even though we're keeping it brief

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today.

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Anna: Basaks and Louisiana Governor Jeff Landry

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announced this week that the company is

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building a second Starbase. This one on the

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Gulf coast in Vermilion Parish, Louisiana.

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With a uh, jaw dropping price tag,

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$100 billion. The plan

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is five separate launch complexes, two

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Starship towers each. So 10 pads total,

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each with its own propellant farm, plus on

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site propellant production, power generation

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and deep water shipping access.

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SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell called it a

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uh, fully self sustaining spaceport.

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Avery: 10 pads is an enormous number

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compared to what they've got in Texas right

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now.

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Anna: It's built for scale. Musk has talked about

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Starship eventually flying more than 30 times

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a day by 2030, something like

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10,000 flights a year across the whole

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programme. And one site in Texas simply isn't

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built for that kind of cadence. Construction

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00:16:11.830 --> 00:16:14.390
on Starbase Louisiana is targeted to start in

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2027 with the first launch aimed at

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00:16:17.030 --> 00:16:19.950
2029. And the project's expected to create

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00:16:19.950 --> 00:16:22.550
around 3,000 direct jobs over the next

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decade.

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Avery: Uh, a 10 year commitment before a single

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rocket flies off that particular stretch of

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coast.

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Anna: That's the scale SpaceX is planning around

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these days. We'll keep tracking it as it

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develops. For now, just worth having on your

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radar.

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Avery: Alright, Skywatch, and um, this is the one

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00:16:38.950 --> 00:16:41.510
we've been previewing for days. It's actually

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00:16:41.510 --> 00:16:42.470
happening tonight.

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00:16:42.630 --> 00:16:44.750
Anna: It is tonight into tomorrow morning,

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00:16:44.750 --> 00:16:46.390
depending which side of the planet. You're

405
00:16:46.390 --> 00:16:49.190
listening to this from. The 96% partial

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lunar eclipse we've mentioned a few times

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00:16:51.030 --> 00:16:53.430
this week, gets underway with a partial phase

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starting at 2:34 Utah UTC,

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00:16:55.890 --> 00:16:58.450
reaches maximum eclipse at 4:13

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UTC and wraps up its partial phase

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00:17:01.210 --> 00:17:03.930
around 5:52 UTC, all

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00:17:03.930 --> 00:17:06.770
early morning on August 28th. Universal Time.

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Avery: Translate that for the Americas, since it's

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00:17:09.210 --> 00:17:11.690
Anna: their show tonight for the US East Coast.

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00:17:11.690 --> 00:17:13.810
That's partial eclipse starting around

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00:17:13.810 --> 00:17:16.370
10:34pm Eastern tonight the

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27th. Maximum coverage at

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12:13am Eastern just after

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midnight, technically the 28th and the

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00:17:24.459 --> 00:17:27.459
partial phase wrapping up around 1:52am

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Eastern. Good views right across north and

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00:17:30.139 --> 00:17:32.779
South America and low on the horizon for

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00:17:32.779 --> 00:17:34.659
parts of Europe and Africa as well.

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Avery: And for us folks down under, one more time.

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Anna: Honestly, one more time. Broad daylight

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00:17:39.899 --> 00:17:42.779
here. That 4:13 UTC peak

427
00:17:42.779 --> 00:17:45.219
lands around 2:13pm Thursday

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00:17:45.299 --> 00:17:48.139
afternoon in Sydney. Moon nowhere near the

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00:17:48.139 --> 00:17:50.619
horizon. This eclipse simply belongs to the

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00:17:50.619 --> 00:17:52.560
other side of the planet. If you've got

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00:17:52.560 --> 00:17:54.520
family, friends or listeners over in the

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00:17:54.520 --> 00:17:57.160
Americas, tell them it's completely safe to

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00:17:57.160 --> 00:17:59.120
watch with nothing more than their own eyes.

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No filters, no eclipse glasses needed like

435
00:18:01.720 --> 00:18:04.120
you'd want for a solar eclipse. Just find a

436
00:18:04.120 --> 00:18:06.080
clear view of the moon and watch it slide

437
00:18:06.080 --> 00:18:09.040
into a deep coppery red as it moves through

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00:18:09.040 --> 00:18:09.840
Earth's shadow.

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00:18:10.080 --> 00:18:12.040
Avery: And um, this is landing the same couple of

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00:18:12.040 --> 00:18:14.600
nights as the geomagnetic storm watch we just

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00:18:14.600 --> 00:18:15.040
covered.

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00:18:15.360 --> 00:18:18.000
Anna: Theme General Window yes, tonight into

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tomorrow is genuinely the stretch to watch

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00:18:20.240 --> 00:18:22.200
the sky whichever side of the planet you're

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00:18:22.200 --> 00:18:24.940
onan eclipse for one hemisphere, a possible

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00:18:25.020 --> 00:18:27.500
aurora mostly for the northern one, and

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00:18:27.500 --> 00:18:30.340
neither strictly speaking, ours to claim down

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00:18:30.340 --> 00:18:30.620
here.

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00:18:30.860 --> 00:18:33.100
Avery: So what's actually worth stepping out for

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00:18:33.180 --> 00:18:33.740
locally?

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00:18:33.900 --> 00:18:36.700
Anna: Venus is still the reliable one, bright and

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00:18:36.700 --> 00:18:39.220
unmistakable low in the west shortly after

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00:18:39.220 --> 00:18:42.220
sunset. Saturn's well placed too, rising in

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00:18:42.220 --> 00:18:44.540
the east as it gets dark. Worth finding with

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00:18:44.540 --> 00:18:47.140
binoculars if you've got a pair handy. Not as

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00:18:47.140 --> 00:18:49.820
dramatic as a blood red moon, but a solid

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00:18:49.820 --> 00:18:51.860
pair to go find tonight, regardless of what

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the other side of the world is looking at.

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Avery: Venus at dusk, Saturn overnight, an eclipse

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00:18:56.780 --> 00:18:59.220
for the Americas and a storm watch for the

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far north.

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Anna: A genuinely full sky this week, even for the

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parts of it we don't get to see directly.

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And that's it for today's episode.

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Avery: Quick recap. Lawrence Livermore Physicists

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00:19:09.020 --> 00:19:11.020
recreated the crushing pressures inside

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Neptune and Uranus in the lab, solving a 20

468
00:19:13.980 --> 00:19:16.060
year disagreement over Diamond's melting

469
00:19:16.060 --> 00:19:18.340
point and pointing toward a possible tripling

470
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of fusion energy gains. Researchers have

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built an AI model that can spot solar storms

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00:19:23.460 --> 00:19:26.000
forming roughly nine hours before their even

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visible. SpaceX unveiled a $100

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billion second starbase planned for the

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Louisiana coast, and a deep partial lunar

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eclipse is unfolding tonight for the

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00:19:35.840 --> 00:19:38.440
Americas, daylight for the rest of us. But

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Venus and Saturn are still worth

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Anna: a look if you enjoyed the show. The best

480
00:19:42.200 --> 00:19:44.440
thing you can do is tell a friend, leave us a

481
00:19:44.440 --> 00:19:46.360
rating wherever you listen and follow us.

482
00:19:46.520 --> 00:19:49.000
Just search Astro daily pod on Facebook,

483
00:19:49.160 --> 00:19:52.000
Instagram, TikTok X, Tumblr and YouTube.

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00:19:52.310 --> 00:19:53.510
Avery: And while you're there, head to

485
00:19:53.510 --> 00:19:56.430
astronomydaily.IO and sign up for

486
00:19:56.430 --> 00:19:58.750
our free daily newsletter. A summary of the

487
00:19:58.750 --> 00:20:00.790
latest space and astronomy news straight to

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00:20:00.790 --> 00:20:03.470
your inbox, plus an email alert every time we

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00:20:03.470 --> 00:20:04.350
post a new episode.

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00:20:04.350 --> 00:20:06.430
Anna: We'll be back tomorrow with more from across

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the universe. Until then, keep looking up.

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See you next time, and wishing you. Clear

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00:20:10.550 --> 00:20:12.710
Skies Astronomy Day

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Storeys.