A research suggests that Jupiter's and Saturn's atmosphere may be full of diamonds.
Kevin Baines, a planetary scientist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison presented a research at the Division for Planetary Sciences conference at Denver, which suggests that planets like Jupiter and Saturn may have diamonds floating in their atmosphere.
Baines, who also works on the Cassini mission's Saturn-orbiting spacecraft, was studying thick yellowish ammonia clouds in Saturn's atmosphere and also found that other dark clouds are also cropping up. Baines' observation of the thunder storms on Saturn combined with new laboratory experiments shows how carbon behaves under extreme conditions, which may offer a suitable environment for the formation of diamonds.
"This creates about a thousand tons of diamonds per year, and I estimate that in the 30,000-kilometer-thick diamond-containing layer, there are about 10 million tons of diamonds formed in this manner," said Baines.
Earlier theories opined that only Uranus and Neptune may have diamonds. Intense temperature and pressure on Uranus and Neptune would be suitable to convert atmospheric methane gas to diamonds, which later rain down to the surface.
The presence of less methane on Jupiter and Saturn was one reason which made scientists believe that these planets do not produce diamonds.
Researchers believe that the conditions in the greatest depths of Jupiter's atmosphere are so extreme that it may cause diamonds to appear in liquid form. Comparatively, Uranus and Neptune are much cooler and diamonds on these planets never melt.
"We can therefore say that, most probably, diamonds are forever on Uranus and Neptune but not on Jupiter and Saturn," said Mona Delitsky, a planetary scientist at California Specialty Engineering in Pasadena, California, and lead author of the study.
However, the research done by Kevin Baines and his team is also opposed by other scientists who believe that diamond production on Saturn may not be possible as the amount of soot produced by thunder storms is too small for diamond production. Moreover, the soot may be destroyed by the increasing pressure and temperature as it reaches other layers of the atmosphere.
It may be possible that by using robotic probes humans may be able to mine diamonds from Jupiter and Saturn and get it to Earth in the future.
