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Neptune is one of the four "gas giants."

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Consider this your daily reminder that the solar system is even more awesomely bonkers than you realized: On Uranus and Neptune, scientists forecast rain storms of solid diamonds.

The gems form in the hydrocarbon-rich oceans of slush that swath the gas giants' solid cores. Scientists have long speculated that the extreme pressures in this region might split those molecules into atoms of hydrogen and carbon, the latter of which then crystallize to form diamonds. These diamonds were thought to sink like rain through the ocean until they hit the solid core.

But no one could prove that this would really work - until now. In a study published this week in the journal Nature Astrophysics, researchers say they were able to produce this "diamond rain" using fancy plastic and high-powered lasers.

When I saw the results of this latest experiment, it was one of the best moments of my scientific career.

Dominik Kraus, physicist at the Helmholtz Dresden-Rossendorf

"Previously, researchers could only assume that the diamonds had formed," lead author Dominik Kraus, a physicist at the Helmholtz Dresden-Rossendorf research centre in Germany, told the magazine Cosmos. "When I saw the results of this latest experiment, it was one of the best moments of my scientific career."

Scientists have tried to do this before - who wouldn't want to make it rain precious stones? - but they ran into problems mimicking the incredible pressures near the gas planet's cores. Neptune and Uranus are 17 and 15 times the mass of Earth, respectively, and their oceans are crushed by pressures millions of times more intense than the air pressure at Earth's sea level.

To match this absurd intensity, Kraus and his colleagues used two types of laser - one optical, one X-ray - to produce shock waves. These waves were then driven through a block of polystyrene - a type of plastic composed of hydrogen and carbon, just like Uranus and Neptune's oceans.

"The first smaller, slower wave is overtaken by another stronger second wave," Kraus explained in a news release. The combination of the two waves squeezed the plastic to 150 gigapascals of pressure - more than exists at the bottom of Earth's mantle - and heated it to more than 8,500 degrees. At that moment, the diamonds began to form.

The process lasted only a fraction of a second, and the diamonds were no bigger than a nanometer in length. But Kraus and his colleagues believe that the diamonds that develop on Uranus and Neptune are probably bigger and longer-lasting.

"In the planet you have years, millions of years, and a long range of conditions where this actually can happen," co-author Dirk Gericke, of the University of Warwick, told the Guardian.

The results will be useful not just for understanding the outer gas giants but for improving the process of making diamonds. Most lab-grown stones are produced via a blasting process, but Kraus and Gericke suggest that using lasers may make production cleaner and easier to control. Those stones can then be used for semiconductors, drill bits and solar panels, not to mention instruments that mimic the conditions inside the very gas planets that inspired this research.

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It rains solid diamonds on Uranus and Neptune

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Consider this your daily reminder that the solar system is even more awesomely bonkers than you realized: On Uranus and Neptune, scientists forecast rain storms of solid diamonds. The gems form in the hydrocarbon-rich oceans of slush that swath the gas giants' solid cores.

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Uranus orbits the sun lying on its side.

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*Uranus is the seventh planet from the Sun, the third largest in our solar system (51,488km wide) and the last planet that can be seen with the naked eye.

*Although Uranus can be seen without a , being so far from the Earth it moves very slowly in the and was therefore believed to be a star. It wasn't until 1779 that an amateur astronomer by the name of William Herschel spotted it in his homemade 6.2 inch reflector and correctly identified it as a planet.

*Uranus is named after the Greek god of the sky Ouranos, the father of Cronos () and grandfather of Zeus (). It was also a logical choice for the planet as the three bodies are now ordered according to their mythological lineage in the celestial heavens.

*The Uranus is believed to have a rocky core and is composed of 83% hydrogen, 15% helium and 2% methane. It is the methane gas above the cloud layers which gives the planet its blue-green colour. Along with , Uranus is called an "ice-giant" and with a minimum temperature of -224c is the coldest planet in our solar system.

*Uranus is a "ringed" planet and has at least 27 moons, many of which are named after characters from the works of William Shakespeare and Alexander Pope. These include Miranda, Ariel, Umbriel, Titania and Oberon.

* The planet is tilted almost 98 degrees meaning its poles are near to where you would usually expect to find its equator. Consequently, despite Uranus revolving once every 17 hours and 14 minutes, one day on its poles last for 42 years each. Uranus also takes 84 years to orbit around the Sun.

*Uranus has been visited only once back in 1986 by the spaceship Voyager 2, which came within 81,500kms of its atmosphere.

*Under optimal conditions Uranus can be seen with the naked eye but by using a 10×50 binoculars , its faintly blue or green hue can be discerned. A 6 inch telescope with 300x or 400x magnification may enable you to see a pale cyan disk, equivalent in size to observing a golf ball from 12 feet away. However, it's almost impossible to see details like cloud patterns, and some of the larger moons such as Titania and Oberon, may require telescopes with at least an 8 inch aperture.

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Uranus is the seventh planet from the Sun, the third largest in our solar system (51,488km wide) and the last planet that can be seen with the naked eye. *Although Uranus can be seen without a , being so far from the Earth it moves very slowly in the and was therefore believed to be a star.

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Saturn has at least 18 moons

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Surface Pressure: >>1000 bars Temperature at 1 bar: 134 K (-139 C) Temperature at 0.1 bar: 84 K (-189 C) Density at 1 bar: 0.19 kg/m Wind speeds Up to 400 m/s ( 30 degrees latitude) Scale height: 59.5 km Mean molecular weight: 2.07 Atmospheric composition (by volume, uncertainty in parentheses) Major: Molecular hydrogen (H) - 96.3% (2.4%); Helium (He) - 3.25% (2.4%) Minor (ppm): Methane (CH) - 4500 (2000); Ammonia (NH) - 125 (75); Hydrogen Deuteride (HD) - 110 (58); Ethane (CH) - 7 (1.5) Aerosols: Ammonia ice, water ice, ammonia hydrosulfide

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Jupiter is the giant of the Solar System.

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The largest planet in the solar system acts like a giant magnet.

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Mars has less gravity than Earth.

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Earth is the only planet in the Solar System that has life on it.

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Venus is the brightest planet in the Solar System.

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The Magellan probe that orbited Venus from 1990 to 1994 was able to peer through the thick Venusian clouds and build up the above image by emitting and re-detecting cloud-penetrating radar. Visible as the bright patch below central North is Venus' highest mountain Maxwell Montes.

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Mercury is the closest planet to the sun.

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Surface pressure: <~5 x 10 bar (0.005 picobar) Average temperature: 440 K (167 C) (590-725 K, sunward side) Total mass of atmosphere: <~10000 kg Atmospheric composition (Column abundances in 10 per cm): Sodium 12,000-200,000; Magnesium 100,000; Oxygen <40,000; Hydrogen 5000, Potassium 800-1300, Calcium 300-1000; Iron <300; Aluminum 15; and possible trace amounts of Argon (Ar), Carbon Dioxide (CO), Water (HO), Nitrogen (N), Xenon (Xe), Krypton (Kr), Neon (Ne), Helium (He) (The atmosphere of Mercury is a surface bounded exosphere, essentially a vacuum.