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It rains diamonds deep inside Uranus and Neptune

Crushing planetary pressures transform atmospheric methane into falling diamonds

Thousands of kilometres beneath the cloud tops of Uranus and Neptune, extreme heat and pressure squeeze atmospheric methane molecules, splitting carbon from hydrogen. The intense pressure crystallises carbon into diamonds, which sink through liquid mantle layers like diamond hail.

Voyager 2 Neptune and Triton
NASA / Jet Propulsion Lab ยท Public domain ยท source

Where this comes from

NASA Science

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Tags: diamonds, uranus, neptune

It rains diamonds deep inside Uranus and Neptune: the short answers

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Crushing planetary pressures transform atmospheric methane into falling diamonds. The figure is taken from NASA Science, which is linked in full on this page. Every fact on Mondo Knows names its source rather than repeating an unsourced claim.
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