Diamond Rain: Saturn and Its Weather
In Diamond Rain: Saturn and Its Weather, Professor Brian Cox explains how Saturn is able to maintain dramatic weather when it is so far from the Sun. Learn how the pressure on Saturn creates clouds, storms, and diamond rain. This video is excerpted from BBC’s The Planets, a series that explores the dramatic lives of the eight planets in our Solar System.
Lesson Express
Q: What drives weather on Earth? What drives weather on Saturn?
A: The Sun influences the weather on Earth. Heat sources on the planet itself power the weather on Saturn.
Q: How powerful is the pressure on Saturn?
A: It is 82 times greater than the pressure deep in the ocean. The pressure is great enough to turn graphite rain into diamonds and eventually dissolve. Farther down in Saturn, the pressure is so intense that the atmosphere behaves like liquid metal, can conduct electricity, and molten helium falls and kinetic energy is released as heat.
Q: What do you think about the weather on Saturn? What surprised you?
A: Student responses will vary.
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