The Solar Planets

 

Mercury: Overview: The Swiftest Planet

Mercury's surface temperatures range from 467 degrees Celsius (872 degrees Fahrenheit) to -183 degrees Celsius (-300 degrees Fahrenheit).
Mars’ average surface temperature is -55 °C, but the Red Planet also experiences some variability, with temperatures ranging as high as 20 °C at the equator during midday, to as low as -153 °C at the poles. On average though, it is much colder than Earth, being just on the outer edge of the habitable zone, and because of its thin atmosphere – which is not sufficient to retain heat.
In addition, its surface temperature can vary by as much as 20 °C due to Mars’ eccentric orbit around the Sun (meaning that it is closer to the Sun at certain points in its orbit than at others).

What is the Average Surface Temperature of the Planets in our Solar System?

15 Dec , 2014 by Matt Williams

It’s is no secret that Earth is the only inhabited planet in our Solar System. All the planets besides Earth lack a breathable atmosphere for terrestrial beings, but also, many of them are too hot or too cold to sustain life. A “habitable zone” which exists within every system of planets orbiting a star. Those planets that are too close to their sun are molten and toxic, while those that are too far outside it are icy and frozen.
But at the same time, forces other than position relative to our Sun can affect surface temperatures. For example, some planets are tidally locked, which means that they have one of their sides constantly facing towards the Sun. Others are warmed by internal geological forces and achieve some warmth that does not depend on exposure to the Sun’s rays. So just how hot and cold are the worlds in our Solar System? What exactly are the surface temperatures on these rocky worlds and gas giants that make them inhospitable to life as we know

Of our eight planets, Mercury is closest to the Sun. As such, one would expect it to experience the hottest temperatures in our Solar System. However, since Mercury also has no atmosphere and it also spins very slowly compared to the other planets, the surface temperature varies quite widely.
What this means is that the side exposed to the Sun remains exposed for some time, allowing surface temperatures to reach up to a molten 465 °C. Meanwhile, on the dark side, temperatures can drop off to a frigid -184°C. Hence, Mercury varies between extreme heat and extreme cold and is not the hottest planet in our Solar System.

Venus: Overview: Planetary Hot Spot

That honor goes to Venus, the second closest planet to the Sun which also has the highest average surface temperatures – reaching up to 460 °C on a regular basis. This is due in part to Venus’ proximity to the Sun, being just on the inner edge of the habitability zone, but also to Venus’ thick atmosphere, which is composed of heavy clouds of carbon dioxide and sulfur dioxide.
These gases create a strong greenhouse effect which traps a significant portion of the Sun’s heat in the atmosphere and turns the planet surface into a barren, molten landscape. The surface is also marked by extensive volcanoes and lava flows, and rained on by clouds of sulfuric acid. Not a hospitable place by any measure!

Our Home Planet

Mars: Overview: The Red Planet

Minimum/Maximum Surface Temperature	-88/58 (min/max) °C	-153 to +20 °C
Atmospheric Constituents	Nitrogen, Oxygen	Carbon Dioxide, Nitrogen, Argon

Jupiter: Overview: King of the Planets

Since Jupiter is a gas giant, it has no solid surface, so it has no surface temperature. But measurements taken from the top of Jupiter’s clouds indicate a temperature of approximately -145°C. Closer to the center, the planet’s temperature increases due to atmospheric pressure.
At the point where atmospheric pressure is ten times what it is on Earth, the temperature reaches 21°C, what we Earthlings consider a comfortable “room temperature”. At the core of the planet, the temperature is much higher, reaching as much as 35,700°C – hotter than even the surface of the Sun.

Saturn: Overview: Jewel of Our Solar System

Due to its distance from the Sun, Saturn is a rather cold gas giant planet, with an average temperature of -178 °Celsius. But because of Saturn’s tilt, the southern and northern hemispheres are heated differently, causing seasonal temperature variation.

Uranus: Overview: The Sideways Planet

Neptune: Overview: The Windiest Planet

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The Sun

The Sun: In Depth:

The sun is the closest star to Earth, at a mean distance from our planet of 149.60 million kilometers (92.96 million miles). This distance is known as an astronomical unit (abbreviated AU), and sets the scale for measuring distances all across the solar system. The sun, a huge sphere of mostly ionized gas, supports life on Earth. The connection and interactions between the sun and Earth drive the seasons, ocean currents, weather and climate. It is the center of our solar system.
About one million Earths could fit inside the sun. It is held together by gravitational attraction, producing immense pressure and temperature at its core. The sun has six regions - the core, the radiative zone, and the convective zone in the interior; the visible surface (the photosphere); the chromosphere; and the outermost region, the corona. The sun has no solid surface.
At the core, the temperature is about 15 million degrees Celsius (about 27 million degrees Fahrenheit), which is sufficient to sustain thermonuclear fusion. The energy produced in the core powers the sun and produces essentially all the heat and light we receive on Earth. Energy from the core is carried outward by radiation, which bounces around the radiative zone, taking about 170,000 years to get from the core to the convective zone. The temperature drops below 2 million degrees Celsius (3.5 million degrees Fahrenheit) in the convective zone, where large bubbles of hot plasma (a soup of ionized atoms) move upwards.
The sun's surface - the photosphere - is a 500-kilometer-thick (300-mile-thick) region, from which most of the sun's radiation escapes outward and is detected as the sunlight we observe here on Earth about eight minutes after it leaves the Sun. Sunspots in the photosphere are areas with strong magnetic fields that are cooler, and thus darker, than the surrounding region. Sunspot numbers fluctuate every 11 years as part of the sun's magnetic activity cycle. Also connected to this cycle are bright solar flares and huge coronal mass ejections that blast off the sun.
The temperature of the photosphere is about 5,500 degrees Celsius (10,000 degrees Fahrenheit). Above the photosphere lie the tenuous chromosphere and the corona (crown). Visible light from these top regions is usually too weak to be seen against the brighter photosphere, but during total solar eclipses, when the Moon covers the photosphere, the chromosphere can be seen as a red rim around the sun while the corona forms a beautiful white crown with plasma streaming outward, forming the points of the crown.
Above the photosphere, temperature increases with altitude, reaching as high as 2 million degrees Celsius (3.5 million degrees Fahrenheit). The source of coronal heating has been a scientific mystery for more than 50 years. Likely solutions emerged from observations by the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) and the Transition Region and Coronal Explorer (TRACE) missions, but the complete answer still evades scientists. Recent missions - Hinode, Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory (STEREO), and the Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) - greatly improved our knowledge of the corona, getting us still closer to the answer. They also give us an unprecedented understanding of the physics of space weather phenomena such as solar flares, coronal mass ejections, and solar energetic particles. Space weather can adversely affect our technology in space and on Earth; these missions help us to develop space weather reports.

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History
The sun has inspired mythological stories in cultures around the world, including those of the ancient Egyptians, the Aztecs of Mexico, Native American tribes of North America and Canada, the Chinese and many others.
A number of ancient cultures built stone structures or modified natural rock formations to mark the motions of the sun and moon - they charted the seasons, created calendars and monitored solar and lunar eclipses. These architectural sites show evidence of deliberate alignments to astronomical phenomena: sunrises, moonrises, moonsets, even stars or planets. Many cultures believed that the Earth was immovable and the sun, other planets, and stars revolved about it. Ancient Greek astronomers and philosophers knew this geocentric concept from as early as the 6th century BCE. Now we know, of course, that all the planets orbit our lone star - the sun.

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How the Sun Got its Name
The sun has many names in many cultures, all of them presumably pre-historic in their origins. The ancient Greeks called it Helios and the ancient Romans called it Sol, both of which derive from the same Proto-Indo-European term. Latin Sol developed as sole in Italian, sol in Portuguese and Spanish, and with the addition of an originally diminutive suffix, as soleil in French. Modern English sun evolved from the same Proto-Germanic form that today is Sonne in German and zon in Dutch, variously attested as sonne and sunne in Old and Middle English, with similar forms found in other ancient Germanic languages such as Old Norse, Old Saxon, Old High German and Gothic.

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