New research on carbon cracks open secrets deep inside exoplanets

An artist’s rendering of 55 Cancri e, an exoplanet rich in carbon. For the first time in a laboratory setting, researchers—including the University of Rochester's Gilbert (Rip) Collins and Ryan Rygg—have achieved extreme pressures that help them to understand the structure of carbon that sits in the interior of carbon-rich exoplanets like 55 Cancri e. (NASA/JPL-CalTech)