Solar System 10 Things To Know: Planetary Atmospheres

Solar System 10 Things to Know: Planetary Atmospheres

Every time you take a breath of fresh air, it’s easy to forget you can safely do so because of Earth’s atmosphere. Life on Earth could not exist without that protective cover that keeps us warm, allows us to breathe and protects us from harmful radiation—among other things.

What makes Earth’s atmosphere special, and how do other planets’ atmospheres compare? Here are 10 tidbits:

1. On Earth, we live in the troposphere, the closest atmospheric layer to Earth’s surface. “Tropos” means “change,” and the name reflects our constantly changing weather and mixture of gases.

Solar System 10 Things To Know: Planetary Atmospheres

It’s 5 to 9 miles (8 to 14 kilometers) thick, depending on where you are on Earth, and it’s the densest layer of atmosphere. When we breathe, we’re taking in an air mixture of about 78 percent nitrogen, 21 percent oxygen and 1 percent argon, water vapor and carbon dioxide. More on Earth’s atmosphere›

2. Mars has a very thin atmosphere, nearly all carbon dioxide. Because of the Red Planet’s low atmospheric pressure, and with little methane or water vapor to reinforce the weak greenhouse effect (warming that results when the atmosphere traps heat radiating from the planet toward space), Mars’ surface remains quite cold, the average surface temperature being about -82 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 63 degrees Celsius). More on the greenhouse effect›

3. Venus’ atmosphere, like Mars’, is nearly all carbon dioxide. However, Venus has about 154,000 times more carbon dioxide in its atmosphere than Earth (and about 19,000 times more than Mars does), producing a runaway greenhouse effect and a surface temperature hot enough to melt lead. A runaway greenhouse effect is when a planet’s atmosphere and surface temperature keep increasing until the surface gets so hot that its oceans boil away. More on the greenhouse effect›

4. Jupiter likely has three distinct cloud layers (composed of ammonia, ammonium hydrosulfide and water) in its “skies” that, taken together, span an altitude range of about 44 miles (71 kilometers). The planet’s fast rotation—spinning once every 10 hours—creates strong jet streams, separating its clouds into dark belts and bright zones wrapping around the circumference of the planet. More on Jupiter›

5. Saturn’s atmosphere—where our Cassini spacecraft ended its 13 extraordinary years of exploration of the planet—has a few unusual features. Its winds are among the fastest in the solar system, reaching speeds of 1,118 miles (1,800 kilometers) per hour. Saturn may be the only planet in our solar system with a warm polar vortex (a mass of swirling atmospheric gas around the pole) at both the North and South poles. Also, the vortices have “eye-wall clouds,” making them hurricane-like systems like those on Earth.

Another uniquely striking feature is a hexagon-shaped jet streamencircling the North Pole. In addition, about every 20 to 30 Earth years, Saturn hosts a megastorm (a great storm that can last many months). More on Saturn›

6. Uranus gets its signature blue-green color from the cold methane gas in its atmosphere and a lack of high clouds. The planet’s minimum troposphere temperature is 49 Kelvin (minus 224.2 degrees Celsius), making it even colder than Neptune in some places. Its winds move backward at the equator, blowing against the planet’s rotation. Closer to the poles, winds shift forward and flow with the planet’s rotation. More on Uranus›

7. Neptune is the windiest planet in our solar system. Despite its great distance and low energy input from the Sun, wind speeds at Neptune surpass 1,200 miles per hour (2,000 kilometers per hour), making them three times stronger than Jupiter’s and nine times stronger than Earth’s. Even Earth’s most powerful winds hit only about 250 miles per hour (400 kilometers per hour). Also, Neptune’s atmosphere is blue for the very same reasons as Uranus’ atmosphere. More on Neptune›

8. WASP-39b, a hot, bloated, Saturn-like exoplanet (planet outside of our solar system) some 700 light-years away, apparently has a lot of water in its atmosphere. In fact, scientists estimate that it has about three times as much water as Saturn does. More on this exoplanet›

9. A weather forecast on “hot Jupiters”—blistering, Jupiter-like exoplanets that orbit very close to their stars—might mention cloudy nights and sunny days, with highs of 2,400 degrees Fahrenheit (about 1,300 degrees Celsius, or 1,600 Kelvin). Their cloud composition depends on their temperature, and studies suggest that the clouds are unevenly distributed. More on these exoplanets›

10. 55 Cancri e, a “super Earth” exoplanet (a planet outside of our solar system with a diameter between Earth’s and Neptune’s) that may be covered in lava, likely has an atmosphere containing nitrogen, water and even oxygen–molecules found in our atmosphere–but with much higher temperatures throughout. Orbiting so close to its host star, the planet could not maintain liquid water and likely would not be able to support life. More on this exoplanet›

Read the full version of this week’s Solar System 10 Things to Know HERE.

Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space: http://nasa.tumblr.com.

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redplanet44

7 years ago

Mars Surface Is Looking Much Deadlier Than We Previously Thought

So much for those space potatoes.

A new study has revealed that compounds present in the Martian soil can wipe out whole bacterial cultures within minutes.

Researchers have had their suspicions over whether microorganisms can actually survive on the surface of the Red Planet, and now lab tests are spelling doom for any potential little green bacteria. And yeah, growing potatoes on Mars might be more difficult than we thought.

The problem here lies with perchlorates - chlorine-containing chemical compounds that we first detected on Mars back in 2008. These salty compounds are also what makes water on the Martian surface stay liquid, essentially turning it into brine.

Perchlorates are considered toxic for people, but they don’t necessarily pose a problem for microbes. And because they keep surface water liquid, on Mars the presence of these compounds could even be beneficial for life - or so we thought.

Researchers from the University of Edinburgh have now confirmed that when you pair the compounds with intense ultraviolet (UV) light exposure, things become grim for any life forms.

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redplanet44

7 years ago

Smart ink adds new dimensions to 3-D printing

Researchers at Dartmouth College have developed a smart ink that turns 3D-printed structures into objects that can change shape and color. The innovation promises to add even more functionality to 3D printing and could pave the way to a new generation of printed material.

The advancement in the area of form-changing intelligent printing - also known as 4D printing - provides a low-cost alternative to printing precision parts for uses in areas ranging from biomedicine to the energy industry.

“This technique gives life to 3D-printed objects,” said Chenfeng Ke, an assistant professor of chemistry at Dartmouth. “While many 3D-printed structures are just shapes that don’t reflect the molecular properties of the material, these inks bring functional molecules to the 3D printing world. We can now print smart objects for a variety of uses.”

Many 3D printing protocols rely on photo-curing resins and result in hard plastic objects with rigid, but random molecular architectures. The new process allows designers to retain specific molecular alignments and functions in a material and converts those structures for use in 3D printing.

Types as Ya Boy Bill Nye quotes

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redplanet44

7 years ago

Roommate -> roomsister

November 28 2017

Afternoon study session at my university’s library with my astronaut friend @redplanet44 ☆

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redplanet44

7 years ago

The perfect news in EVERY WAY.

I Have Nothing To Do With This Mission, But Damn Do I Feel Proud. What Peculiar Beings We, Humans, Are.

I have nothing to do with this mission, but damn do I feel proud. What peculiar beings we, humans, are. Sending into space a doll in a spacesuit, named “Starman”, seated in an electric car, with a sign “Don’t Panic” on the car’s dashboard, blasting David Bowie’s “Life On Mars?”. I’m not crying, you are.

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redplanet44

7 years ago

Apply independently produced drug to the burnt area

Fed Up With Drug Companies, Hospitals Decide to Start Their Own

"A group of large hospital systems plans to create a nonprofit generic drug company to battle shortages and high prices.

Brittle starfish shows how to make tough ceramics

Nature inspires innovation. An international team lead by researchers at Technion – Israel Institute of Technology, together with ESRF -the European Synchrotron, Grenoble, France- scientists, have discovered how a brittle star can create material like tempered glass underwater. The findings are published in Science and may open new bio-inspired routes for toughening brittle ceramics in various applications that span from optical lenses to automotive turbochargers and even biomaterial implants.

A beautiful, brainless brittle star that lives in coral reefs has the clue to super tough glass. Hundreds of focal lenses are located on the arms of this creature, which is an echinoderm called Ophiocoma wendtii. These lenses, made of chalk, are powerful and accurate, and the deciphering of their crystalline and nanoscale structure has occupied Boaz Pokroy and his team, from the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, for the past three years. Thanks to research done on three ESRF beamlines, ID22, ID13 and ID16B, among other laboratories, they have figured out the unique protective mechanism of highly resistant lenses.

As an example, take tempered glass. It is produced by exerting compressive pressure on the glass which compresses it and leaves it more compact than in its natural state. Glass tempering is performed by rapidly heating and then rapidly cooling the material. In this process, the outside of the material cools more quickly than the inside and thereby compresses the inside. Ophiocoma wendtiilenses are created in the open sea, at room temperature, unlike tempered glass. “We have discovered a strategy for making brittle material much more durable under natural conditions. It is ‘crystal engineering’ and tempering without heating and quenching – a process that could be very useful in materials engineering,” explains Pokroy.

Self-healing material a breakthrough for bio-inspired robotics

Many natural organisms have the ability to repair themselves. Now, manufactured machines will be able to mimic this property. In findings published this week in Nature Materials, researchers at Carnegie Mellon University have created a self-healing material that spontaneously repairs itself under extreme mechanical damage.

This soft-matter composite material is composed of liquid metal droplets suspended in a soft elastomer. When damaged, the droplets rupture to form new connections with neighboring droplets and reroute electrical signals without interruption. Circuits produced with conductive traces of this material remain fully and continuously operational when severed, punctured, or had material removed.

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