quote:
Originally posted by Puke:
um-kay. cool. but why would the carbon not liquify rather than crystalize? of course, presuming that the carbon 'rain' is more like carbon 'snow' or 'hail'
well, i'd guess those terms are pretty equivalent, given that carbon doesn't seem to have a liquid form that we know of. it can be a gas in combination with other gasseous elements, but not by itself... pure carbon only does 'free' (like soot), 'graphite', or 'diamond' - as far as we know, of course.
as an aside, this theory was indirectly referenced in Arthur Clarke's "2015" (title?), after the jovian sun ignited, shards of the core diamond fell upon the surface of europa. a research ship then landed on the planet (for reasons i don''t remember), and there was some scene involving the greedier members of the crew rushing around collecting fragments.
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"Just think of it as Evolution in action" -
'Oath of Fealty', by Larry Niven & Jerry Pournelle.
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