What's the weather like up there?
The weather makes a big difference to our mood on earth but do we get the worst of it?
Records show that the hottest day on earth was July 10, 1913, when in Death Valley, California, reached 57 centigrade. But if you were on Venus, that would be like a cool breeze. Here a thick atmosphere of carbon dioxide, which turns it into a greenhouse, holds in the sun's heat so the planet never cools down, even at night. Surface temperatures are enough to melt lead!
Mars is further from the sun than Earth and the air is very thin. In summer the daytime temperatures reach 27˚C. But at night, the temperature can drop to about minus 93˚C. This because the "air" on Mars is mostly of carbon dioxide and is less than 1/100th as thick as on earth. The heat from the daytime sun escapes into space at night. And the whole planet can be wrapped in clouds of fine Martian dust for weeks at a time since the thin air can create huge dust storms from the planet's fine soil.
Europa, one of the four largest moons of Jupiter, is covered in smooth ice, with temperatures around minus 200˚C. But Triton's ice volcanoes and a surface temperature of minus 235˚C, make this moon one of the coldest objects in the solar system!
Hurricanes on Jupiter blow stronger than any on earth. Jupiter's Great Red Spot could swallow up the earth twice over and has been raging for 300 years.
But it is a breeze compared with Saturn which has beautiful rings and bands of clouds that move at around 161 kilometres per hour, some east, some west. Saturn is not quite as cold as Europa.
Titan is covered in thick, hazy clouds, so, does it get rain? It has lakes but they are filled with liquid methane or ethane, not water.
Uranus, is only another really windy gas giant. Neptune's winds are the fastest in the solar system, reaching over 965 kilometres per hour!
So, although we may complain sometimes about our weather, it's no better anywhere else!
Mars is further from the sun than Earth and the air is very thin. In summer the daytime temperatures reach 27˚C. But at night, the temperature can drop to about minus 93˚C. This because the "air" on Mars is mostly of carbon dioxide and is less than 1/100th as thick as on earth. The heat from the daytime sun escapes into space at night. And the whole planet can be wrapped in clouds of fine Martian dust for weeks at a time since the thin air can create huge dust storms from the planet's fine soil.
Europa, one of the four largest moons of Jupiter, is covered in smooth ice, with temperatures around minus 200˚C. But Triton's ice volcanoes and a surface temperature of minus 235˚C, make this moon one of the coldest objects in the solar system!
Hurricanes on Jupiter blow stronger than any on earth. Jupiter's Great Red Spot could swallow up the earth twice over and has been raging for 300 years.
But it is a breeze compared with Saturn which has beautiful rings and bands of clouds that move at around 161 kilometres per hour, some east, some west. Saturn is not quite as cold as Europa.
Titan is covered in thick, hazy clouds, so, does it get rain? It has lakes but they are filled with liquid methane or ethane, not water.
Uranus, is only another really windy gas giant. Neptune's winds are the fastest in the solar system, reaching over 965 kilometres per hour!
So, although we may complain sometimes about our weather, it's no better anywhere else!