The Bedtime Scientist

A question

Where does rain come from?

A calm, true answer. Then, if the wondering keeps going, the whole episode.

The short answer

From the sea, mostly, by way of the sky. The sun warms water until it rises invisibly as vapour, the vapour cools high up and gathers into droplets, and when the droplets grow heavy enough they fall.

None of the water is new. It has been going round for billions of years, so the water in your glass tonight has been a cloud and a river and an ocean before, and may well have drifted over a dinosaur.

Go deeper tonight

The Water Cycle: The Journey of a Droplet

The full episode, in one calm voice, with nothing that startles.

The episode

The Water Cycle: The Journey of a Droplet

0:00 9:22
Sleep timer

Read the guide for this one in the morning.

This connects to

Water

One idea turns up in many different nights. Follow one and the library starts to join up.