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Physicists Find New Evidence For Helium 'Rain' On Saturn (sciencemag.org)

Posted by Soulskill on from the balloon-magnates-funding-exploratory-mission dept.

sciencehabit writes: Using one of the world's most powerful lasers, physicists have found experimental evidence for Saturn's helium 'rain,' a phenomenon in which a mixture of liquid hydrogen and helium separates like oil and water, sending droplets of helium deep in the planet's atmosphere. The results show the range of blistering temperatures and crushing pressures at which this takes place. But they also suggest that a helium rain could also fall on Jupiter, where such behavior was almost completely unexpected.

27 comments

  1. credit where credit is due by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    This result also depended on the cooperation of one of the world's most powerful sharks.

    1. Re:credit where credit is due by rudy_wayne · · Score: 1

      What about Uranus?

    2. Re:credit where credit is due by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Why do you even ask?

  2. Helium Rain! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Some stay dry while others feel the pain!

    Helium Rain!~

    1. Re:Helium Rain! by ClickOnThis · · Score: 2

      Helium Rain...

      I'm torn between a progressive metal band or an indie action-movie.

      --
      If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.
  3. Don't try this at home by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Millot says it took about 5 years and 300 laser shots to sketch out the phase transition across temperatures between 3000 and 20,000 kelvins and pressures between 30 and 300 gigapascals.

    That's not what I expected when I read about "rain" - the helium "rain" apparently falls through an "atmosphere" of metallic hydrogen.

    1. Re:Don't try this at home by mikael · · Score: 1

      Sounds more like a giant spherical lava lamp made from liquid helium and hydrogen. A solid core of liquid hydrogen at the core with a outer shell of liquid helium with all sorts of bubbling and rain in a turbulence layer.

      It would be like those science fair experiments that involve mixing colored liquids of different densities. Over time they separate out, but heating and shaking mix them up. Imagine doing that experiment in zero gravity. Instead of having a cylindrical tank of of colored layers, you would have spherical shells.

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    2. Re:Don't try this at home by Rei · · Score: 3, Interesting

      It would have to be far, far colder to support liquid helium at normal atmospheric pressures.

      An interesting possibility that I've pondered is that if you have a very distant body (no relevant stellar heat input), small enough to not have relevant internal heat, which is losing helium to a tidally locked partner, it would be experiencing evaporative cooling to below the cosmic microwave background... to the point that the helium becomes a superfluid. My calculations show that you don't need some sort of extreme helium loss rate because radiative heat exhange with the cosmic microwave background is so incredibly slow. That would be an incredibly bizarre world to see...

      Further in the future, the cosmic microwave background will drop below helium's triple point, and superfluid He4 will become common in the universe :)

      --
      That was either the start of something bad or the end of something stupid.
    3. Re:Don't try this at home by meerling · · Score: 2

      Especially since superfluids are totally bizzare. People should hit youtube and search for superfluids, I bet they'd find some really weird stuff. (Like a tubular fountain of liquid that never stops, liquids crawling up the sides of the container, and even liquids that appear to be leaking out the bottom of a glass.)

    4. Re:Don't try this at home by Rei · · Score: 1

      ** that should read "lambda point", not "triple point"; of course :)

      --
      That was either the start of something bad or the end of something stupid.
    5. Re:Don't try this at home by RockDoctor · · Score: 1

      It would have to be far, far colder to support liquid helium at normal atmospheric pressures.

      In fact, these Ts & Ps would put the helium far into the supercritical realm. At which point the distinction between liquid and gas is a bit irrelevant.

      --
      Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"
  4. Weird Al where are you? by Nkwe · · Score: 5, Funny

    Somewhere in the back of my head I am hearing the song Helium Rain begin sung to the tune of Purple Rain, but after taking a bit hit on a helium balloon.

    1. Re:Weird Al where are you? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Of course, now that you've suggested it, it's guaranteed to never happen. The same with "Canadian Bacon" (to the tune of "American Woman"), as I understand.

    2. Re:Weird Al where are you? by Nkwe · · Score: 1

      You are probably correct. But just in case I legally declare (as much is possible on an loosely authenticated online forum) the idea to be in the public domain and free for anyone to use. Produced by Al, anyone, or no one, the sound is gonna be stuck in my head for a while...

    3. Re:Weird Al where are you? by DesertNomad · · Score: 1

      Don't bogart the balloon, dude!

  5. This gives me an idea for a new kickstarter... by mark_reh · · Score: 2

    I want to get funded to build a rocket to go there and scoop up helium and bring it back to earth to fill party balloons!
    Contribute $5 and you'll get a helium filled balloon. For bigger contributions you can go all the way up to a Macy's parade style balloon, with the very top tier of rewards for BIG contributors reserved for people to ride along on the trip to Saturn.

    1. Re: This gives me an idea for a new kickstarter... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      But how will you land your ship??

    2. Re: This gives me an idea for a new kickstarter... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      But how will you land your ship??

      It doesn't need to land. It can just fly through the upper atmosphere with a big scoop on the front.

    3. Re:This gives me an idea for a new kickstarter... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      What about when fusion becomes practica... oh, carry on.

      Seriously though, if we really got desperate we could manufacture helium and *almost* break even in the process. Also, it's a natural byproduct of many nuclear decay reactions and is probably blowing past us like crazy in the Solar wind. These sources aren't as concentrated; but a helluva lot easier to get to.

    4. Re:This gives me an idea for a new kickstarter... by Zontar+The+Mindless · · Score: 1

      Call me back when you offer a helium-filled zeppelin.

      --
      Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
  6. Cool by penguinoid · · Score: 1

    That's so cool. Like, -450 F.

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    1. Re:Cool by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 1

      That's so cool. Like, -450 F.

      Nope. Even the surface of Saturn is about 120K, which is far warmer than -450F. But this "rain" is happening deep within Saturn where the temperature is several thousand K, hot enough to melt iron.

    2. Re:Cool by RockDoctor · · Score: 1

      hot enough to vapourise iron.

      FTFY Well, actually, at these Ts and Ps, and particularly with a low partial pressure of metals (astronomer sense : anything that is not hydrogen or helium), a dilute solution of supercritical iron vapour in supercritical hydrogen-helium vapour. But that's probably what makes it hard to calculate - working out the equation of state for the phase change at those Ts and Ps.

      --
      Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"
  7. It's purple too... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Cue T.A.F.K.A.P.

  8. Re: This gives me an idea for a new kickstarter.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    It'll go WHOOSH.

  9. set fire to the rain by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    set fire to the rain!

  10. Explains everything! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I now know why all of the outer space beings in my childhood cartoons had funny voices!
    Cartoonists were right all along!