May Contain 'Chunks' Of Diamonds Floating In The Dense Atmosphere

Data compiles by planetary scientists shows that Jupiter and Saturn may be awash in diamonds floating in their dense liquid hydrogen/helium fluid atmospheres.

Newly published pressure-temperature diagrams developed by Mona L. Delitsky of California Specialty Engineering in Pasadena, California, and Kevin H. Baines of the University of Wisconsin-Madison shows that diamonds would be stable in one region of the atmosphere, and blow that the temperatures and pressures would be so great that the diamonds would melt and cause liquid diamond or diamond rain.

An article published in SpaceRef.com indicates that some of the floating diamonds on Saturn's atmosphere may be so large as to be called "diamondbergs."

The two researchers say that elemental carbon crated by enormous lightning storms on Saturn falls into the planet's atmosphere and is crushed into diamonds by the tremendous pressure before melting into liquid diamond near the core of the planet.

Jupiter and Saturn were previously thought to be too warm or not have stable enough conditions for the diamond formation. The presence of the mineral on Uranus and Neptune has long been acknowledged, but those bodies are too cold to produce the liquid diamond thought to be present on Saturn and Jupiter.

(NASA image)

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