Some places in the Solar System
have some pretty expensive rain
falling on their surface.
Why not see if we could bring that home?
It rains diamonds on Saturn,
Jupiter, and maybe on Uranus
and Neptune too.
On Saturn, it’s the combination of lightning,
carbon and atmospheric pressure
that makes it drop diamonds from the sky.
First, dramatic lightning storms
turn methane in Saturn's atmosphere
into graphite.
Then, the very high atmospheric pressure
turns the graphite into diamonds.
Then, the uncut gems rain down
to Saturn's center until they get liquified
by the planet's extreme temperatures.
Now that we know the recipe,
how would we go about pulling this off on our planet?
Diamonds are some of the hardest
materials found on Earth.
The only thing that can scratch a diamond
is another diamond.
Now imagine those gemstones
falling down from the sky.
It wouldn't be anything like that.
More like this.
A diamond rain would bring
total destruction down to Earth.
The falling gems would be tiny a like a pebble,
or small like a baseball.
But because of their sharp, jagged edges,
and because of the speed at which
diamonds would be falling from the sky,
even the tiniest diamond hitting your car
would be like hitting it with a baseball bat.
They'd break all your car windows,
and the windows of your home.
They'd damage streets and highways.
And they could injure or even kill you.
Meteorologists would have a hard time
predicting a jewel thunderstorm.
If you wanted to stay safe,
you wouldn't leave your house without a helmet,
or maybe even metal clothes.
It would be awkward to walk around in those,
but at least you wouldn't get killed by a diamond.
Saturn produces almost 1 million kg (2.2 million lbs)
of diamonds every year.
If the Earth had such a rich supply of gems,
they'd stop being so rare and desirable,
and their market price would plunge down.
At least you could afford to give your girlriend
an engagement ring with one big diamond on it.
But diamonds wouldn't just be used in jewelry.
Because of their abundance,
we would start using them
for anything we could think of.
We'd build diamond houses,
design diamond furniture,
we could even pave our roads with diamonds.
What a shiny world it would be.
Unfortunately, getting hit by a diamond
wouldn't be your biggest concern.
As we figured earlier,
an important ingredient for a diamond rain is methane.
On Earth, the amount of methane in the atmosphere
is equivalent to two cups of water in a swimming pool.
Plus, to turn methane into graphite,
and then into diamonds,
Earth's atmospheric pressure
would need to be about 1,000 times higher.
If it rained diamonds on Earth,
you'd wouldn't be around to see it.
All of humanity would be squashed,
and left to suffocate.
Another WHAT IF, another "how to die" scenario.
Luckily, there's more than one spectacular way
to make the Earth more like other places in the Solar System.
But that's a story for another WHAT IF.