Ughh.. perhaps that bean burrito from the gas station wasn’t a good decision, when deciding what to eat for breakfast..
So, with that non-descriptive intro text, you may be wondering what this post is all about? Well, back a few weeks ago I wrote up a post on how hospitable the terrestrial planets are (Mercury, Venus and Mars), and put a foot note about what was next. This post is all about that, but rather than repeat myself 4 times and change the name of the planet, I figured that I’d describe to you just how big these bad boys are, and give a quick blurb about what it’s like on said planet. We’ll start with the planet that’s forever upset,
At roughly 11 times the radius of Earth, and a puny 318 Earth’s in Mass, this big guy is known as the Solar System’s vacuum cleaner. Thought to be a failed star early on, not much is known about what lies at the center of Jupiter. Physicists believe that it contains compressed metallic hydrogen, a material that is not able to be reproduced on Earth due to the substantial pressures required.
Second largest planet in the solar system, but surprisingly different from it’s neighbor Jupiter. At less than 764 Earths in volume, and about 95 Earth’s in Mass, this pretty planet also holds another gold medal, The least dense Jovian planet. Saturn is so not-dense that if you could shrink it down to the proper size, it would float in your bathtub filled with Water.
*snicker*.. it’s pronounced YURI-NUS, not YOUR-ANUS. Significantly smaller than the previous two, 14 Earth’s in Mass and 63 Earth’s in volume, this planet is probably the most boring planet of anything in our Solar System. So boring in fact, that I’m essentially going to skip over it.
GOD OF THE SEA!
17 Earth’s in Mass, and just under 58 Earth’s in volume, this is your girlfriends’ favorite planet because it rains Diamonds the size of small cars on this surface. The diamonds themselves are made of methane, so they range from blue in colour (like the planet itself) to perfectly clear, depending on which trace atmospheric elements get mixed up as it forms. A perfect cycle, gaseous methane up top rains down, and the gravity compresses it into a diamond as it gets closer to the core. The core then atomizes it, which spreads the now gaseous methane out with such energy it reaches the upper atmosphere again. Ahhh.. the circle of life..
All images courtesy of rhysy and Physicists of the Caribbean