Diamonds Stud the Atmospheres of Saturn and Jupiter

Andrew Fazekas
National Geographic
Published October 9, 2013

It sounds like science fiction, but as much as 10 million tons of diamonds may be stored in Saturn and Jupiter, researchers announced this week.

Observational evidence of storms on Saturn that actively generate carbon particles, combined with new laboratory experiments and models that show how carbon behaves under extreme conditions, have led a pair of scientists to posit that both planets may offer stable environments for the formation of diamonds.


"We now know the high temperature limit [8,000 Kelvin] for solid diamond, above which it melts. And we also now have more precise pressure [and] temperature structures for the interiors of Saturn and Jupiter," said Kevin Baines, a planetary scientist at University of Wisconsin–Madison and co-author of the study presented this week at a conference in Denver, Colorado.

"These two results together show us for the first time that solid diamonds can exist over large vertical regions of both planets."

Earlier theories included only Uranus and Neptune as suspected diamond producers. Scientists suggested that intense temperature and pressure on those planets may be able to convert atmospheric methane gas directly into diamonds, which rain down into their interiors.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2013/10/131009-diamonds-saturn-jupiter-planet-science-space/

But is Lucy there as well?