• Question: do other planets rain and if they do, what do they rain?

    Asked by rowanisspurs8 to Amy, Grant, Martin, Shawn, Usman on 18 Mar 2013.
    • Photo: Grant Kennedy

      Grant Kennedy answered on 18 Mar 2013:

      Probably, though it’s very hard to tell. There’s an idea that it rains helium in Saturn’s atmosphere, though since almost the whole planet is made of gas it’s not like rain landing on the surface of a planet. On Venus, it rains sulfuric acid way up in the atmosphere, but that doesn’t make it to the ground either.

      A place where it probably snows is Enceladus, a moon of Saturn. Water vapour erupts from the south pole of this moon, some of it goes out into Saturn’s rings, and some of it comes back down as snow!

      g

    • Photo: Martin Archer

      Martin Archer answered on 19 Mar 2013:

      And on Neptune there are theories that is rains diamonds! It all depends on the conditions of the planet and what their atmospheres are made of really.

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