Orbiting a pulsar in the Milky Way’s Serpens, or Snake, constellation, may be the most beautiful planet you’ll ever lay eyes on. It is certainly the most valuable. This rock is about five times the diameter of Earth and made almost entirely of diamond.
The pulsar at the centre of the image is orbited by an object that is about the mass of Jupiter and composed primarily of carbon; effectively a massive diamond. The orbit, represented by the dashed line, would easily fit inside our Sun, represented by the yellow surface. The blue lines represent the radio signal from the pulsar, which spins around 175 times every second.
Image credit: Swinburne Astronomy Productions