We are fortunate to live on earth. Although there are thousands of known exoplanets, including a significant number of terrestrial planets, none of them can really replace our planet. After all, life on Earth is a product of its unique environment. Of course, life itself plays an important role in shaping this environment. However, some planets are much more terrifying than you think, especially in their climate and weather systems. This time, I will explore the weather on other planets, which will allow you to rethink before complaining about the weather in the earth.
1 . Rain sulfuric acid on Venus
Venus is the most unsuitable environment in the solar system. Its atmospheric pressure is only the beginning (the atmospheric pressure is 90 times that of the Earth, which is equivalent to living in the sea of 900 meters, the surface temperature reaches 500 degrees Celsius). It has the hottest surface in the solar system planets, and there is not much sunlight because the clouds are very dense. In other words, a visitor walks to the surface and is pressed into a carbon briquette in a matter of seconds. However, unfortunately, any brave tourist who wants to enter Venus must "evolve" himself, and their equipment (including themselves) will be corroded by sulfuric acid rain.
2. Molten glass rain on HD189733b
About 63 light years away, there is a dark blue world, slightly larger than Jupiter. We can look pretty good with the naked eye, but the weather on this planet is really terrible. According to NASA, the wind is seven times faster than the speed of sound. However, unfortunately, any visitor will hover around the world at an alarming rate (never landing), and the blue particles of the world will shatter anything that they encounter on the road. In fact, at temperatures above 700 ° C, an endless stream of molten glass has been spinning around the upper atmosphere.
3. A violent sandstorm on Mars
Contrary to the hopes and dreams of many astronomers of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Mars is a cold, lifeless world. Maybe it wasn't like this before, but the surface of Mars is now destroyed by radiation, and it struggles to keep the fragile atmosphere. Mars is actually a world without air, but Mars still has seasons and weather. In some ways, this may be slightly similar to ours. But the Martian sandstorm is particularly terrible, sometimes covering almost the entire planet, as observed by the Mariner 9 probe in 1971 when studying Mars, including some recent pictures that everyone can see.
4. Supersonic wind on Neptune
It is true that the supersonic winds on Neptune are not as strong as the above HD189733b, but they are still impressive. They can reach 1,500 miles per hour (2,400 kilometers per hour), making them the fastest known storms in the solar system. Neptune is also the birthplace of many storms. In the eyes of the observers, these storms are dark areas. Sometimes these storms, such as the "big dark spot", may be larger than the Earth and often last for years to decades. No one knows exactly how Neptune formed these storms. Where do the huge energy they need come from? But its strange weather is certainly not driven by the distant sun.
5. Methane snow on Titan
Titan has a very dense atmosphere. This mysterious orange world is also home to lakes, rivers, oceans and glaciers, and it is raining and snowing. Titan's water is frozen to a solid at a surface temperature of -179 ° C, replaced by a mixture of methane, ethane, propane and other chemicals. In fact, it has hundreds of times the natural gas and hydrocarbon fuels that make up the entire planet!
6. Magma rain on Corot-7b
Corot-7b is an exoplanet, 489 light years away from us, and it orbits a star similar to ours. It is also a rocky planet, accounting for about 58%. This is the similarity. It is so close to the main star that it is only 20 hours old and its surface temperature reaches 2500 ° C, so the remaining 42% of the surface will be covered by lava. Corot-7b always shows the same face to stars. Therefore, one side will always be "sunlight" and the other side will always be at night, creating a completely different environment.
7. Great red spot on Jupiter
Since the 7th century Babylon, people have been studying the huge gaseous planets of our solar system, which is one of the most impressive planets in the solar system. There are also some weird weather systems here, including the storm that lasted for 200 years. “Big Red Spot” is one of Jupiter’s most famous “tourist spots” and you can see it yourself with a high-end telescope. It is large enough to hold three planets. Curiously, although the wind speed on the edge of the storm is about 250 miles (400 kilometers) per hour, the interior seems relatively calm.
Finally, I want to say to everyone, for the earth, our blue star, and live and cherish it.