Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2024/08/01/mercury-may-have-11-mile-deep-layer-of-diamonds.html
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So if one is already richer than Croesus there is a possibility that a hefty dose of technology could be employed such that one could become even richer than Croesus? (“nah… he’s heir to an emerald mine not mere diamonds”) Occasionally wondered if the mere discovery of say, a meteor with substantial gold content would affect the price of gold on boring ol’ earth …?
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Well, there’s only ever been about 212,600 tons of gold mined here on Earth, and it is estimated that one asteroid alone, 16 Psyche, has at minimum 1,000,000,000 tons of gold in it, possibly as much as multiple trillions of tons. Certainly enough to make everyone on earth a “billionaire,” though of course that would make gold as common as lead.
I wonder if the existing priveleged class, if and when this is confirmed, will act to preserve the ‘rarity’ of gold by preventing import, or just claim the whole thing for themselves and keep it as a gold-repository sort of reserve, trading the minerals amonst themselves and keeping everyone else still scrambling for scraps. Certainly they won’t share, that’s just not in the cards.
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And there was a time when you could show off your wealth with aluminum plates and tableware. 
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FTA: they are at a depth of about 500 kilometers
Given that diamond can be manufactured on earth for useful purposes, and that the price has dropped to $78/carat for the lab grown ones (to the point it doesn’t even support industry in “low-cost” places like 
), I’m not sure we’ll see Mercurial diamond on the market any time soon. 
The terrestrial kind can be picked up in huge quantities off sandy beaches or plucked from northern 
rivers; the extra effort to dig a 500km mine on Mercury seems… illogical.
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So, “Musk Mercury Mining” starts tomorrow?
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Nobody pays retail anymore. Why should you?
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This supports my longstanding hypothesis that Martians were an advanced species that were so bougie that they wiped their asses with diamonds. We’ve discovered a Martian septic system.
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It sounds rough being that bougie.
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My Ted Talk on the topic is called “Ouch.”
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The Moronic Company.
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When I was in HS, I write a short story about the world government factions meeting to discuss whether to mine Jupiter or not. I had learned that they think there are huge amounts of diamonds near the core, and so in my story they would strip off the hydrogen for fuel, and mine the diamonds, and everyone would have diamond coated knives and jewelry and stuff.
Though in hindsight, no one would want diamond jewelry (or at least it wouldn’t be a status symbol) because of how plentiful it would be. Though stripping the hydrogen for space fuel would still work (in concept of course. IRL would be a lot harder.)
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When talking about “mining” something like a gas giant it isn’t about the quantity of diamond, it’s about the fact you have a planetoid size piece of it. How else are we supposed to create a giant sun based planetary defense laser?
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The entire planet of mercury…
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My understanding is that there isn’t even a shortage of diamonds here on Earth (supply is manipulated to create an artificial shortage, but we probably have as many as we need, and can make synthetics to meet any foreseeable additional demand). It doesn’t seem worth going all the way to Mercury or the asteroid belt to get more.
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The sun, shining so brightly, darkened almost to the point of invisibility. The war vessels of the enemy disappeared, each puffing out into a tiny, but brilliant, sparkle of light.
Then, before the beam could affect the enormous masses of the planets, the engineers lost it. The sun flashed up—dulled—brightened—darkened—wavered. The beam waxed and waned irregularly; the planets began to move away under the urgings of their now thoroughly scared commanders.
Again, while millions upon millions of tensely straining Patrol officers stared into their plates, haggard Thorndyke and his sweating crews got the sunbeam under control again—and, in a heart-stoppingly wavering fashion, held it together. It flared—sputtered—ballooned out—but very shortly, before they could get out of its way, the planets began to glow. Ice caps melted, then boiled. Oceans boiled, their surfaces almost exploding into steam. Mountain ranges melted and flowed sluggishly down into valleys. The Boskonian domes of force went down and stayed down.
“QX, Kim—let be,” Haynes ordered. “No use overdoing it. Not bad-looking planets; maybe we can use them for something.”
The sun brightened to its wonted splendor, the planets began visibly to cool—even the Titanic forces then at work had heated those planetary masses only superficially.
The battle was over.
“What in all the purple hells of Palain did you do, Haynes, and how?” demanded the Z9M9Z’s captain.
“He used the whole damned solar system as a vacuum tube!” Haynes explained, gleefully. “Those power stations out there, with all their motors and intake screens, are simply the power leads. The asteroid belts, and maybe some of the planets, are the grids and plates.”
Second Stage Lensman, Dr. Edwin Elmer Smith
Complete balderdash and technobabble of course, from an era before we really knew much, publicly at least, fusion or stellar mechanics, but still a good read, if you ignore the racism, misogamy, and so on.
(edit: restored a lost paragraph of the quote)
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- Anyone know what would happen to Earth’s orbit if we mess around w Mercury by mining it & significantly reducing its mass?
- Diamonds are only valuable because we say they are; start hauling in large stellar quantities & they basically become gravel
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If we could find an efficient way to get some of that diamond (or the diamond hypothesized to make up the core of Jupiter) to Earth orbit, Arthur C. Clarke postulated in 2061: Odyssey Three that it could make space elevators a reality (based on some real scientific papers, according to the Wikipedia entry.)
“LUCY IS HERE”
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Considering Mercury is 0.00002% the mass of the sun, I’m going with “not much”
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