The Causes of Diamond Rain on Saturn and Jupiter Each Year

Jakarta – Scientists believe that a combination of strange weather and unusual chemical reactions are responsible for the diamond rain phenomenon that is common on the planets Saturn and Jupiter.

Historical data on the atmospheres of these two gas giants show an abundance of carbon in the form of dazzling crystals. 

When thunderstorms strike, they turn methane into carbon soot that hardens as it falls, turning into chunks of granite and eventually into diamonds.

Scientists first discovered this phenomenon in 2013, and described it as a 'diamond hailstone' that eventually melted into a liquid ocean in the hot cores of both planets.

The largest diamonds, they estimate, are about one centimeter in diameter. Kevin Baines, from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, said that the diamond would be large enough to fit in a ring.

Its size would make the late actress Elizabeth Taylor 'proud'. The bottom line is that 1,000 tons of diamonds per year are made on Saturn.

"People ask me how do you know? Because there's no way you can go and observe it. It all comes down to chemistry. And we're pretty sure," he explained. 

Baines and Mona Delitsky, from California Specialty Engineering, conducted a study to find out if the giant planets in the Solar System rain diamonds.

They analyzed predictions of planetary interior temperature and pressure, and looked at data on how carbon behaves under different conditions.

The researchers concluded that stable diamond crystals would rain down over a very large area on Saturn. According to Baines, it all starts at the top of the atmosphere, in the path of storms, where lightning turns methane into soot.

"As the soot drops, the pressure above it increases. And after about 1,000 miles, the soot turns into graphite, a sheet-like form of carbon that you find in pencils," he said. 

These falling chunks of graphite descend about 6,000km and harden into strong, non-reactive diamonds. These chunks continue to fall for 30,000 kilometers about two and a half Earth spans.

"Once you get down to such great depths, the pressure and temperature are so high, there's no way the diamond can stay solid. It's very uncertain what happens to the carbon down there," he remarked. 

But diamonds wouldn't survive on Saturn and Jupiter, as they would gradually turn into oceans of liquid carbon.