Diamond 'Super-Earth' May Not Be Quite as Precious as Once Thought, Study Find

A planet once known as the galaxy's first “diamond world” may be less blingy than it seemed. Around 40 light-years from Earth, the exoplanet 55 Cancri e was suspected to be made largely of carbon, leading to headlines of a diamond planet. But a new investigation, led by Johanna Teske of the University of Arizona, calls that conclusion into question. Re-analysing telescope data, her team concluded that the host star has a lot more oxygen than originally believed, making the possibility that its planet formed with a carbon-dominant atmosphere less likely.

New Analysis Challenges 55 Cancri e's Reputation as a Diamond-Rich Exoplanet

According to a University of Arizona report, studies implied 55 Cancri e may be wrapped in a layer of diamond, yet Teske's team found oxygen is 25% too abundant to sustain the carbon-heavy scenario. Astronomers create computer models to simulate the rocky planets, such as 55 Cancri e, based on radius, mass, and density, taking into account the star's makeup. Even at high oxygen or high carbon, a pocket can form planets in spite of uncertainties.

55 Cancri e, in the constellation of Cancer, orbits in a year, has a high surface temperature, and is well away from its star.

By reassessing telescope data, scientists found its host star contains more oxygen than carbon, weakening earlier claims of a diamond-heavy interior. The findings highlight uncertainties in star-to-planet chemistry and the complexity of exoplanetary science.

The field of exoplanet studies, on the other hand, is relatively young and also has uncertain star-to-planet depletion and accretion composition. Better instruments might change theories and show hidden surprises.

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Hubble Uncovers Multi-Age Stars in Ancient Cluster, Reshaping Galaxy Origins

Astronomers call ancient star clusters like NGC 1786 “time capsules” for their galaxy, preserving some of its oldest stars. A new image from NASA's Hubble Space Telescope offers an unprecedented close-up of this dense cluster 160,000 light-years away in the Large Magellanic Cloud. Hubble's data show that NGC 1786 contains stars of different ages – a surprising find, since such clusters were once thought to hold a single stellar generation. This multi-age discovery is reshaping our view of how galaxies built their first stars, and suggests more complex early history. Mixed-Age Stars in a Galactic Time Capsule According to the official source, this Hubble image shows the globular cluster NGC 1786, a ball of densely packed stars in the Large Magellanic Cloud about 160,000 light-years from Earth. Astronomers captured this picture as part of a program comparing ancient clusters in nearby dwarf galaxies (like the LMC) with clusters in our own Milky Way. The surprising discovery is th...

CSIRO Uses Quantum AI to Revolutionize Semiconductor Design

Researchers at Australia's CSIRO have achieved a world-first demonstration of quantum machine learning in semiconductor fabrication. The quantum-enhanced model outperformed conventional AI methods and could reshape how microchips are designed. The team focused on modeling a crucial—but hard to predict—property called “Ohmic contact” resistance, which measures how easily current flows where metal meets a semiconductor. They analysed 159 experimental samples from advanced gallium nitride (GaN) transistors (known for high power/high-frequency performance). By combining a quantum processing layer with a final classical regression step, the model extracted subtle patterns that traditional approaches had missed. Tackling a difficult design problem According to the study, the CSIRO researchers first encoded many fabrication variables (like gas mixtures and annealing times) per device and used principal component analysis (PCA) to shrink 37 parameters down to the five most important ones. ...

A Planet with a Death Wish: How HIP 67522 b Is Forcing Its Star to Explode

Scientists have caught a planet with a death wish, which is an alien world, orbiting very near to its star, and so speedy that it is causing the star to go to its death with bursting explosions. HIP 67522 b is the planet, and it is of the same size as Jupiter with a seven-day orbit around its host star. These orbits are disturbing the magnetic field of the star and causing enormous blasting eruptions to blow back the planet and make it wrinkled. This is the first time that a planet is influencing the host star, as the astronomers reported in a study published on July 2, 2025, in the Journal Nature. A Planet with a Death Wish: HIP 67522 b's Fiery Orbit As per the study by NASA, Ekaterina Ilin, the first author of the study and an astrophysicist at the Netherlands Institute for Radio Astronomy, said that the planet was observed to trigger the energetic flares. It has been predicted by the scientists that the waves are setting off explosions that are going to happen. Magnetic Chaos: P...

Kartavya Kant Tiwari

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