Our Own Solar System Is Crazy Cool
I once went to a planetarium show about the wildest weather in the solar system. By once, I mean just a few years ago, because even as an adult I love planetarium shows. If I lived somewhere with a planetarium nearby, you can expect I'd be seeing every new show that came out.
Anyway, this solar system weather one, it turned out way cooler than I expected. Though I suppose I'm always mind-blown by planetarium shows. This one really stuck with me, however, and I've been dying to incorporate the things I learned into my sci-fi novels (I already have used some of them!).
Let's take a brief tour.
Mercury: Extreme temperature swings
In grade school, we had to do a project on a planet of our choice, and I picked Mercury. I remember that it rotates slowly, has almost no atmosphere, and has very little tilt to it. The result is a scorching hot "day" side and a freezing cold "night" side. According to the Internet, it can range from 427º C (800ºF) to -173ºC (-280ºF).
Venus: Deadly atmosphere and acid rain
The atmosphere is what makes Venus. It's dense, mostly carbon dioxide, and scalding hot. Wikipedia says the atmospheric pressure is 92x that of Earth. It's covered by clouds of sulfuric acid--resulting in corrosive, sulfuric acid rain--and is a stormy, raging future-look of the greenhouse effect taken to its extreme. It has metal snow thanks to metals that vaporize in the lower, hotter regions and precipitate in the cooler mountainous areas. Even our space probes get wrecked in the vicious conditions of Venus's atmosphere.
Mars: Constant bombardment and dust storms
Mars suffers from asteroid strikes and solar winds, due to its thin atmosphere. Its surface is marked by many vast craters and ravines, and the dry, dusty surface makes it prone to gigantic dust storms. It's also the home of Olympus Mons, the largest volcano known in the solar system.
Jupiter: Super-storms the size of planets
Everyone knows about Jupiter's spot, and how it could fit three Earths in there. It's a gas giant with a hydrogen-helium atmosphere and a rocky core, but no definable "surface." The cyclones on the surface can last from hours to centuries. The great red spot has been known to man for hundreds of years. It apparently rotates counter-clockwise and has been theorized to be a stable, permanent part of Jupiter.
Saturn: A mix of the others, plus rings
From what I can gather with my research, Saturn is a milder version of some of its counterparts. It's a gas giant like Jupiter, with high winds like Neptune, and massive hurricanes like several of them. The planetarium chose to focus on Saturn's moon, Titan, which has methane lakes and rain.
Neptune: Unparalleled wind speeds
Like many others, Neptune has storms larger than all of Earth, but what really makes Neptune stand out is the absolutely ridiculous wind speeds. It's an "ice giant" along with Uranus--gas giants with icy cores (ices including water, ammonia, and methane). The winds reach up to 1,300 mph (2,100 kph, 580 m/s), and it has very active weather/atmosphere.
Uranus: Super cold, and ice volcanoes?
Uranus is the coldest planet, and like Neptune is an ice giant. Most of what I can find describes Uranus as either fairly bland, or similar to Neptune. I'm sure that planetarium show talked about these crazy gigantic eruptions from the surface, that reach dizzying heights, and I think they may have been ice volcanoes or something similar. However, I've been reading for the past half hour and can't find anything even close to that. This article talks a bit about Uranus and mentions an eruption of methane ice, which might be it. I know for sure cryovolcanic geysers erupt on several moons in the solar system, and possibly Neptune. Feel free to correct me if you have better facts.
All in all, the solar system is nuts. It's a dangerous, inhospitable place out there, with storms of unbelievable proportions, volatile gases and metals, and harsh, unrelenting conditions. Gas giants fascinate me so much, in Pull of Gravity I put a secret base floating inside one's atmosphere, and I fully intend to use more gas giant settings in the future. Just thinking about what's out there in our own back yard boggles my mind. Imagine what else there is to discover in the universe!
Anyway, this solar system weather one, it turned out way cooler than I expected. Though I suppose I'm always mind-blown by planetarium shows. This one really stuck with me, however, and I've been dying to incorporate the things I learned into my sci-fi novels (I already have used some of them!).
Let's take a brief tour.
Mercury: Extreme temperature swings
In grade school, we had to do a project on a planet of our choice, and I picked Mercury. I remember that it rotates slowly, has almost no atmosphere, and has very little tilt to it. The result is a scorching hot "day" side and a freezing cold "night" side. According to the Internet, it can range from 427º C (800ºF) to -173ºC (-280ºF).
Venus: Deadly atmosphere and acid rain
The atmosphere is what makes Venus. It's dense, mostly carbon dioxide, and scalding hot. Wikipedia says the atmospheric pressure is 92x that of Earth. It's covered by clouds of sulfuric acid--resulting in corrosive, sulfuric acid rain--and is a stormy, raging future-look of the greenhouse effect taken to its extreme. It has metal snow thanks to metals that vaporize in the lower, hotter regions and precipitate in the cooler mountainous areas. Even our space probes get wrecked in the vicious conditions of Venus's atmosphere.
Mars: Constant bombardment and dust storms
Mars suffers from asteroid strikes and solar winds, due to its thin atmosphere. Its surface is marked by many vast craters and ravines, and the dry, dusty surface makes it prone to gigantic dust storms. It's also the home of Olympus Mons, the largest volcano known in the solar system.
Jupiter: Super-storms the size of planets
Everyone knows about Jupiter's spot, and how it could fit three Earths in there. It's a gas giant with a hydrogen-helium atmosphere and a rocky core, but no definable "surface." The cyclones on the surface can last from hours to centuries. The great red spot has been known to man for hundreds of years. It apparently rotates counter-clockwise and has been theorized to be a stable, permanent part of Jupiter.
Saturn: A mix of the others, plus rings
From what I can gather with my research, Saturn is a milder version of some of its counterparts. It's a gas giant like Jupiter, with high winds like Neptune, and massive hurricanes like several of them. The planetarium chose to focus on Saturn's moon, Titan, which has methane lakes and rain.
Neptune: Unparalleled wind speeds
Like many others, Neptune has storms larger than all of Earth, but what really makes Neptune stand out is the absolutely ridiculous wind speeds. It's an "ice giant" along with Uranus--gas giants with icy cores (ices including water, ammonia, and methane). The winds reach up to 1,300 mph (2,100 kph, 580 m/s), and it has very active weather/atmosphere.
Uranus: Super cold, and ice volcanoes?
Uranus is the coldest planet, and like Neptune is an ice giant. Most of what I can find describes Uranus as either fairly bland, or similar to Neptune. I'm sure that planetarium show talked about these crazy gigantic eruptions from the surface, that reach dizzying heights, and I think they may have been ice volcanoes or something similar. However, I've been reading for the past half hour and can't find anything even close to that. This article talks a bit about Uranus and mentions an eruption of methane ice, which might be it. I know for sure cryovolcanic geysers erupt on several moons in the solar system, and possibly Neptune. Feel free to correct me if you have better facts.
All in all, the solar system is nuts. It's a dangerous, inhospitable place out there, with storms of unbelievable proportions, volatile gases and metals, and harsh, unrelenting conditions. Gas giants fascinate me so much, in Pull of Gravity I put a secret base floating inside one's atmosphere, and I fully intend to use more gas giant settings in the future. Just thinking about what's out there in our own back yard boggles my mind. Imagine what else there is to discover in the universe!
Cool stuff!
ReplyDeleteI don't think there are cryovolcanoes on any of the gas giants themselves -- not enough of a coherent surface. But a number of the moons seem to have them.