Extraterrestrial forecasts
Ever wished it rained diamonds? On Neptune and Uranus, it’s no joke!
Published on November 29, 2025
Image: Viktor Mindt
Weather on Earth might be wild, but compared to other planets, it’s downright boring. Across our solar system—and beyond—insane storms, metallic rain, and atmosphere-shredding winds violently shape alien worlds. Here are 10 of the weirdest and most extreme weather events ever observed in space.
Diamond Rain
Image: Bas van den Eijkhof
Location: Neptune & Uranus
In the atmospheres of these ice giants, intense pressure crushes methane into solid carbon, forming diamonds that fall like hail.
Estimates suggest that billions of carats worth of diamonds may exist in the deep interiors of these planets, possibly forming layered structures similar to geological strata.
Supersonic Winds
Image: NASA Hubble Space Telescope
Location: HD 189733b
This exoplanet is bombarded by winds blowing at over 5,400 mph—about seven times faster than the speed of sound.
Fortunately, all of this is happening far from Earth—HD 189733b is a 'hot Jupiter' located 63 light-years away. Its atmosphere endures extreme heat on one side and frigid cold on the other, fueling violent winds that circle the planet.
Sulfuric Acid Rain
Image: Planet Volumes
Location: Venus
Venus has clouds of sulfuric acid that rain—but the droplets evaporate before they hit the surface.
Temperatures on Venus reach 870°F, hot enough to melt lead. Acid droplets form high in the atmosphere but vaporize at lower altitudes, creating a corrosive "rain cycle."
Endless Storm
Image: NASA Hubble Space Telescope
Location: Jupiter
A storm larger than Earth has been raging on Jupiter for over 350 years.
First observed in the 1600s, the Great Red Spot is a massive anticyclone with wind speeds exceeding 400 mph. It’s so large that it could easily swallow our planet whole.
Polar Hexagon
Image: Planet Volumes
Location: Saturn
A massive six-sided jet stream spins around Saturn’s north pole. NASA’s Cassini mission captured this bizarre atmospheric pattern, which spans nearly 20,000 miles.
Surprisingly, it's a persistent weather feature—not a surface structure.
Planet-Sized Dust Storms
Image: Daniele Colucci
Location: Mars
Mars is famous for its massive, planet-wide dust storms. These weather events can last for weeks and obscure the entire planet from view.
NASA’s Opportunity rover went silent during one of these dust storms in 2018 and never recovered. The catch? Mars doesn’t have enough atmosphere for the winds to be truly dangerous—sorry, The Martian.
Coldest Spot
Image: Andy Holmes
Location: Boomerang Nebula
The coldest known natural place in the universe is the outer cloud of a dying star. The Boomerang Nebula, located 5,000 light-years away, reaches temperatures near 1 Kelvin—colder than the cosmic background.
This happens because the star’s gas expands so rapidly that it chills below the temperature of empty space itself.
Iron Rain
Image: Morteza Mohammadi
Location: WASP-76b
On this ultra-hot exoplanet, iron vaporizes on the dayside and rains down as molten metal on the nightside.
These extreme temperatures are reached because WASP-76b is tidally locked, with day-side temperatures over 4,000°F.
Molecular Tornadoes
Image: Javid Naderi
Location: The Sun
The Sun hosts giant tornadoes made of superheated plasma. These solar events can be up to 10,000 miles tall and spin at thousands of miles per hour.
They’re driven by magnetic fields and can feed into solar flares and coronal mass ejections—fiery explosions that can even impact Earth.
Electric Snow
Image: NASA
Location: The Moon
The Moon may experience electrostatic dust storms during lunar dawn and dusk. When the Sun hits the lunar surface, it creates an electric field that lifts tiny dust particles off the ground.
This phenomenon was first suspected during the Apollo missions and has been confirmed through recent satellite observations.
