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Exotic rain drenches Jupiter
KEITH COOPER
ASTRONOMY NOW
Posted: 23 March
Next time you visit Jupiter remember to take an umbrella with you. Researchers at the University of California, Berkeley have discovered that drops of helium rain, laced with neon, could be falling from the clouds. Somewhere deep inside Jupiter it is raining helium. Image: NASA/JPL/University of Arizona.Conditions on the gas giant planet are vastly different to on Earth. Where the droplets are forming, 10,000–13,000 kilometres below the upper cloud deck of hydrogen gas, the temperature rises to 5,000 degrees Celsius, and the pressure reaches two million times Earth’s surface pressure. Such an environment sees hydrogen become an electrically conducting liquid, called metallic hydrogen. The helium rain, which begins in misty clouds of fine drops that grow larger with depth, fall through this ocean of liquid hydrogen the same way oil refuses to mix with water. A slice of the interior of Jupiter. Image: Burkhard Militzer.Neon gas comes into the story because in 1995, when NASA’s Galileo spacecraft launched a probe into Jupiter’s atmosphere, all elements were found to be slightly enriched compared to the Sun, except for helium and neon. On the Sun neon atoms are one part in 600 by mass, but on Jupiter they are only one-tenth as abundant, i.e. one part in 6,000. Since Jupiter formed from the same gases that formed the Sun, there should be a closer match that that. Instead, Dr Hugh Wilson and Assistant Professor Burkhard Militzer of the University of California, Berkeley, propose in a paper in this week’s edition of Physical Review Letters that Jupiter’s neon is dissolving in the helium raindrops. “As the helium and neon fall deeper into the planet, the remaining hydrogen-rich envelope is slowly depleted of both neon and helium,” says Militzer. The neon the settles into the mighty core of Jupiter, which supercomputer simulations (the only way of modelling the interior of Jupiter accurately, for no physical laboratory on Earth can replicate those extreme conditions) suggest is made of a solid rocky core surrounded by layers of water, ammonia and methane. Jupiter isn’t the only gas giant to have showers of helium. Saturn, too, has been proposed to have helium rain; as the helium drops condense, they release latent heat that explains why the ringed planet is hotter than it should be. | | | | | FAQs
According to the research lightning storms on the planets turn methane into soot which hardens into chunks of graphite and then diamonds as it falls. The diamonds apparently fall like hail stones and melt into the planets hot cores.
What type of rain does Jupiter have? ›
The helium rain, which begins in misty clouds of fine drops that grow larger with depth, fall through this ocean of liquid hydrogen the same way oil refuses to mix with water. A slice of the interior of Jupiter. Image: Burkhard Militzer.
Is there rain of diamonds in Jupiter? ›
Drops of Jupiter
And not just any diamonds – diamonds so large that researchers referred to them as 'diamondbergs. ' And whereas they may be floating in the upper atmosphere, it is believed that it could be raining diamonds in the lower depths due to the extreme pressures and temperatures actually melting the gems.
Does Jupiter rain helium? ›
“We discovered that helium rain is real, and can occur both in Jupiter and Saturn,” said Marius Millot, a physicist at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) and co-author on the publication.
Which planet has diamond rain? ›
One possible phenomenon is particularly dazzling: deep within Neptune and Uranus, it may rain diamonds. Supported by laboratory simulations, researchers have developed models of the planets' atmospheres to explore what may be causing this unusual weather in their centers deep beneath their hazy shields.
Does Jupiter rain rubies? ›
Tidally locked hot Jupiter WASP-121b has an atmosphere so hot on one side that it breaks down water molecules and rains rubies and sapphires.
What planet rains acid? ›
But if that doesn't sound painful enough, rain on Venus is made up of extremely corrosive sulphuric acid, which would severely burn any interstellar traveller's skin.
How hot is Jupiter? ›
The mean temperature on Jupiter is -166°F (-110°C). Jupiter is an average distance of 484 million miles (778 million kilometers) from the Sun. From this distance, it takes sunlight 43 minutes to travel from the Sun to Jupiter.
Does Jupiter protect Earth? ›
NEWSWEEK - While Jupiter may be our planetary guardian angel, protecting us from harm, gas giants in other solar systems might actually wreak havoc on other exoplanets nearby. In our solar system, Jupiter's huge gravitational field deflects comets and asteroids away from our delicate, rocky home planet.
What rains on Pluto? ›
(Source: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute) You can see that reddish hue in the image above. It's coming from compounds called tholins that are raining out of Pluto's atmosphere.
Saturn has rings — this planet has diamonds.
What planet rains crystals? ›
Deep within Neptune and Uranus, it rains diamonds—or so astronomers and physicists have suspected for nearly 40 years. The outer planets of our Solar System are hard to study, however.
Does Jupiter have snow? ›
Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune have snow. So do many of their satellites. However, only the gas giants are warm enough to have *water* snow, and only at certain levels of the atmosphere.
What liquid is in Jupiter? ›
The composition of Jupiter is similar to that of the Sun – mostly hydrogen and helium. Deep in the atmosphere, pressure and temperature increase, compressing the hydrogen gas into a liquid. This gives Jupiter the largest ocean in the solar system – an ocean made of hydrogen instead of water.
Does Jupiter burn hydrogen? ›
Although Jupiter is a stellar composition----most of its mass is hydrogen and helium---it does not burn like the Sun. Models of star formation suggest that Jupiter's mass is only about one-eightieth of the mass needed for ignition, which occurs due to heating from internal gravitational collapse.
What does the storm on Jupiter do? ›
It is now known that it is a vast storm, spinning like a cyclone. Unlike a low-pressure hurricane in the Caribbean Sea, however, the Red Spot rotates in a counterclockwise direction in the southern hemisphere, showing that it is a high-pressure system. Winds inside this Jovian storm reach speeds of about 270 mph.
What would happen if something hit Jupiter? ›
The object — either pieces of a comet or perhaps an asteroid — pummeled into molecules in Jupiter's atmosphere, rapidly causing friction and heating up. Then, it explodes. "It's pretty much a fireball."
How does Jupiter affect our weather? ›
The sheer size of Jupiter—which is roughly 318 times as massive as Earth—means it also has an outsized pull on our planet. At the peak of that warped orbit, Earth undergoes hotter summers, colder winters as well as more intense periods of drought and wetness.
Somewhere deep inside Jupiter it is raining helium. Image: NASA/JPL/University of Arizona.
A slice of the interior of Jupiter. Image: Burkhard Militzer.