At high pressure and temperature, the phase diagram of elemental carbon is poorly known. We present predictions of diamond and BC8 melting lines and their phase boundary in the solid phase, as obtained from first-principles calculations. Maxima are found in both melting lines, with a triple point located at Ϸ850 GPa and Ϸ7,400 K. Our results show that hot, compressed diamond is a semiconductor that undergoes metalization upon melting. In contrast, in the stability range of BC8, an insulator to metal transition is likely to occur in the solid phase. Close to the diamond͞liquid and BC8͞liquid boundaries, molten carbon is a low-coordinated metal retaining some covalent character in its bonding up to extreme pressures. Our results provide constraints on the carbon equation of state, which is of critical importance for devising models of Neptune, Uranus, and white dwarf stars, as well as of extrasolar carbon-rich planets.phase transitions ͉ melting ͉ high pressure ͉ molecular dynamics ͉ metalization E lemental carbon has been known since prehistory, and diamond is thought to have been first mined in India Ͼ2,000 years ago, although recent archaeological discoveries point at the possible existence of utensils made of diamond in China as early as 4,000 before Christ (1). Therefore, the properties of diamond and its practical and technological applications have been extensively investigated for many centuries. In the last few decades, after the seminal work of Bundy and coworkers (2) in the 1950s and '60s, widespread attention has been devoted to studying diamond under pressure (3). For example, the properties of diamond and, in general, of carbon under extreme pressure and temperature conditions are needed to devise models of outer planet interiors (e.g., Neptune and Uranus) (4-6), white dwarfs (7, 8) and extrasolar carbon planets (9).Nevertheless, under extreme conditions the phase boundaries and melting properties of elemental carbon are poorly known, and its electronic properties are not well understood. Experimental data are scarce because of difficulties in reaching megabar (1 bar ϭ 100 kPa) pressures and thousands of Kelvin regimes in the laboratory. Theoretically, sophisticated and accurate models of chemical bonding transformations under pressure are needed to describe phase boundaries. In most cases, such models cannot be simply derived from fits to existing experimental data, and one needs to resort to first-principles calculations, which may be very demanding from a computational standpoint.It has long been known that diamond is the stable phase of carbon at pressures above several gigapascal (2). Total energy calculations (10, 11) based on Density Functional Theory (DFT) predict a transition to another fourfold coordinated phase with the BC8 symmetry ¶ at Ϸ1,100 GPa and 0 K, followed by a transition to a simple cubic phase at pressures Ͼ3,000 GPa. These transitions have not yet been investigated experimentally, because the maximum pressure reached so far in diamond anvil cell experiments on carbon is 140 GP...