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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.

6 of 27 comments (clear)

  1. 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 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.
    2. 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.)

  2. 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.

  3. 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.

  4. 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.