Researchers have developed a technique to transform ordinary plastic into billions of microscopic diamonds using high-powered optical lasers. This breakthrough not only offers a novel method for manufacturing valuable nanodiamonds but also hints at how similar extreme processes occur naturally in the icy interiors of giant planets like Uranus and Neptune. Scientists targeted polyethylene terephthalate (PET) with intense laser pulses. 

The flashes generated shockwaves that compressed the material to extreme pressures and heated it up to thousands of degrees Celsius in nanoseconds. This forced the carbon and hydrogen atoms within the plastic to separate, allowing the carbon to compress and crystallise into tiny nanodiamonds.