When we look to other solar systems is it
really so surprising that there is a huge diversity of planets and systems out
there. We only need look at our own to see how wacky some of these places are.
So I thought I would compile a feature on the weird and wacky things setting
our own solar system planets apart from each other.
Mercury

The goddess of love and beauty that will
crush you down and melt your skin. Although not the closest to the Sun it is
the hottest planet in the solar system, temperatures can reach up to nearly 500oC.
This is due to high levels of volcanic activity on the surface and a surface
pressure 92 times greater than that we experience on Earth; that is the
equivalent of going 920 meters underwater nearly 3 times deeper than any scuba
diver has ever gone. Labeled as Earth’s sister planet due to its similar size,
its climate is anything but. With an atmosphere of over 95% Carbon dioxide,
rain clouds of sulfuric acid, and little to no temperature variation between
day and night it is a hellish place.
Earth
Terra Firma. What more do I need to say
about this weird and wacky world other than it has managed to produce a
civilization of walking talking primates, who not only have an Internet of
knowledge available at the click of a button, but who have ventured into space,
beyond the realms of their heavenly home.
Named after the God of War due to its vibrant
rust red surface of iron oxide that covers a silica-rich dust bed. Mars is the
most explored planet in the solar system, other than the Earth, with over 30
probes and satellites bound for the ‘Red planet’ since the 1960’s. Most of
these missions, however, met their end before they had even begun. Those that
have made it into Martian orbit, or successfully landed on its surface, have
sent us staggering information about this not so distant world. And with three
active satellites in orbit (Mars express, Mars odyssey, and Mars Reconnaissance
Orbiter) and two live rovers on the ground (Curiosity and Opportunity), we are
set to learn even more in the years to come.
Jupiter

Apart from having a mean density less than
water, meaning that with a bath tub big enough you would find yourself with a
pretty impressive bath toy, Saturn is host to one of the most impressive sites
in the solar system. Its rings. Saturn’s main ring system spans a distance
almost as wide as the planet itself extending from around 6,500 km from the
surface out to over 120,000 km. The latest ring was discovered in 2009 using
the Spitzer space telescope and is the largest ring studied in the solar system
with a thickness of 2.5 million km and reaching 50 times further out into space
than the central rings.
The first and only planet in the solar
system named after a Greek god, Uranus is the largest of the ‘ice giants’ with
an atmosphere of frozen; water, ammonia and methane crystals. While the axial
tilt of the Earth set at 23.5°, affords us a beautiful mix of four seasons a
year. Uranus is tilted at a staggering 97.77° making it barrel roll around the
Sun like a drunken uncle at a wedding. This means that it has the most extreme
seasons in the solar system with each pole experiencing 42 years of continuous
sunlight in the summer, followed by 42 years of darkness in the winter.
Aptly named after the God of the sea,
Neptune gets its rich blue color from the methane in the atmosphere. Voyager 2
made the one and only fly-by of Neptune in August 1999 observing immense storm
systems and winds wrapping round the planet with speeds approaching 600m/s,
over 1,300 miles per hour. If you could stand on Neptune, without getting blown
over or sinking into the atmosphere, you would weigh almost the same as you do
on Earth with a surface gravity of 11.5m/s compared to the 9.81m/s here on
Earth.
Each of the planets in our solar system are
wonderfully unique, so I can’t begin to imagine what the hundreds of exoplanets
out there have to offer us.
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