Thursday, October 12, 2023

A diamond-dusted heaven

It was taking too long to continue ASASSN-21qj so, let us consider ASASSN-21qj-a for today. This planet has formed - is now forming - from a merger of two Neptunes over a sun-like, post-Tauri star. Its location isn't well-constrained yet but is, by Kepler, about the region from Ceres out to Saturn: normally cold. This has all happened rather late in a solar-system's evolution so, not much protomaterial left to scoop up. In particular we don't have much ice out here anymore...

That big hot radiant blur, I expect to end up with too much carbon trapped beneath its silica. Its carbon will mix with iron. There might even be fusion-processes, and critical-mass for fission. I cannot rule out a black silicon/carbon hyperEarth although I admit that is an extreme. The iron core will be stiff and not rotate much, so: its magnetic field ends beneath the high-G surface.

The planet will also own a protolunar disc of silica rings - tho' mostly outside the field (this is not Jupiter). Most of this debris should collapse into a mainly-silica moon-system with less carbon - at first. As we talk potential, these moons could well get to Mars-size. If there be more than one moon, and the extras are inbound of this moon: expect intense tides. I don't know a cooldown from 1000 K allows enough ice for a super-Europa but we'll see much Io. As for soot, I expect full nanodiamond in this haze; that'll rain down on the planet and on its (outer!) moons to form their dusty surface.

We shall never see this faraway system in its final glory. But other, closer stars might have system with a planet-with-moons like this already.

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