(PhysOrg.com) -- On Earth, helium is a gas used to float
balloons, as in the movie "Up." In the interior of Jupiter,
however, conditions are so strange that, according to
predictions by University of California, Berkeley, scientists,
helium condenses into droplets and falls like rain. Helium rain
was earlier proposed to explain the excessive brightness of
Saturn, a gas giant like Jupiter, but one-third the mass. On
Jupiter, however, UC Berkeley scientists claim that helium rain
is the best way to explain the scarcity of neon in the outer
layers of the planet, the solar system's largest. Neon dissolves
in the helium raindrops and falls towards the deeper interior
where it re-dissolves, depleting the upper layers of both
elements, consistent with observations. "Helium condenses
initially as a mist in the upper layer, like a cloud, and as the
droplets get larger, they fall toward the deeper interior," said
UC Berkeley post-doctoral fellow Hugh Wilson, co-author of a
report appearing this week in the journal Phys