The starting material is not a precious stone. PET is the plastic found in many bottles and some packaging. However, an international team uses it for an experiment designed to understand material subjected to extreme conditions.
At the SLAC laboratory, researchers produce shock waves in this plastic with a powerful laser. Pulses of X-rays follow the transformation: diamond regions form, reaching a few nanometers. The results published in September 2022 also show the importance of the oxygen present in the starting mixture.
The experiment helps to study what might happen inside Neptune and Uranus, but it does not prove that a probe photographed a shower of diamonds there. The fact actually observed is in the laboratory. Under the eyes of the instruments, the atoms of a daily material have adopted an organization that we associate with the windows of the jewelers.
What we know
Nanodiamonds observed in the laboratory in PET under laser shock. The rain of diamonds on the planets remains a scenario, distinct from the experimental result.
To go to the source
References consulted on 3 October 2026. Linked pages may be in another language.
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