You state that: "Roughly a million molecules of water fall into the upper atmospheres of Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune each second" (In Brief, 13 September, p 27).
At first glance that figure sounds impressive. However, a quick calculation reveals it to be totally unimpressive. I calculate that to accumulate sufficient water to fill a normal cup (300 millilitres) at this rate would take some 320 billion yearsroughly 20 times the age of the Universe.
Has something been lost in the translation from Nature to New Scientist? If not, it seems that any inhabitants of those planets would hardly need to prepare for a deluge.
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