Diamond rain on Saturn

Its Raining Diamonds!

Image Credit: Flickr User Jan Tik, via CC

Where is it happening? Probably in someone’s dream. No, it is happening for real. Sadly, it is not happening on Earth. Jupiter and Saturn are getting lucky as they are getting diamond rain. Their atmospheres are the largest producers of diamonds as Uranus and Neptune.

How is it happening? Well, the atmosphere of Saturn and Jupiter stretch up to almost tens of thousands of miles and are made up of methane gas. When lightning strikes the methane gas changes into soot (actually carbon). You do know that the diamonds are really carbon, don’t you? As this soot  falls into the deep atmosphere of the planet it is crushed into a diamond. When these diamonds reach the core of the planets they melt.

Mona Delitsky of CSE and Kevin Baines of the University of Wisconsin-Madison are the scientists heading the research.

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Are you ready to strap your space mining suits and head out to collect those diamonds? Maybe in a few years. Space entrepreneurs have been coming up with the idea of “Asteroid Mining” already, to tap the valuable mineral resources that may be found on asteroids. The future is here.

 

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