Rain on earth is something we have come to know well. It is relatively predictable in size and shape, and although we notice more extreme weather and lack of rain in some parts of the world (thanks to climate change, which is our fault by the way), rain itself does not change much. As it turns out, this may also apply to other planets, and a new study suggests that the composition of precipitation may vary dramatically in alien worlds, but that the raindrops will look very familiar to human travelers.
The research, conducted in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Planets, suggests that the physics that regulates how water droplets form and fall on Earth are likely to result in similar precipitation on other planets, even though the composition of the ‘rain’ is very different. In modeling raindrops falling through the atmosphere of planets like Jupiter and Saturn, which are very different from rocky planets like Earth, they found that the nature of the planet does not matter as much when it comes to rain.
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The researchers mimicked precipitation through different types of atmosphere and found that what determines the size of raindrops on Earth generally looks true. If droplets are too small, they evaporate before reaching the surface, but if they are too large, they eventually divide into smaller droplets before impact. The middle ground is the place where the vast majority of droplets end up after falling a considerable distance, regardless of what kind of atmosphere is present or the composition of the rain itself.
Some worlds have slightly larger rainfall than Earth, such as Saturn’s moon Titan. Raindrops on Titan, which consist of methane rather than liquid water, are thought to be about twice as large as raindrops on Earth, but this is still a very small change for such a very different planet. It sounds wild, but it makes a lot of sense. Physics does not care what planet you are on and will rule everything the same way.
What’s even more exciting is that we will soon have the telescope technology to make even more accurate estimates of rainfall on other worlds, that is, if the James Webb space telescope ever starts.
‘Now with instruments like [the James Webb Space Telescope], which will hopefully be launched soon, we will have the ability to detect really fine spectra of exoplanetary atmospheres, including those that are quite cooler than those we can normally characterize, in which clouds and rain will occur, ”said planetary scientist Tristan Guillot, who was not part of the research team, said about the work. “This type of tool will therefore be very useful and important in interpreting these spectra as they are developed.”
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See the original version of this article on BGR.com