• Question: . What is the hottest planet in our solar system?

    Asked by littlemissknowitall to Douglas, Matt, Tom on 24 Jun 2010 in Categories: .
    • Photo: Matthew Hurley

      Matthew Hurley answered on 24 Jun 2010:

      THe hottest planet is the one nearest the moon – mercury.

    • Photo: Douglas Blane

      Douglas Blane answered on 24 Jun 2010:

      Scientists used to say Mercury because it has one half facing the Sun all the time, and it’s the closest planet to the Sun. So it is pretty toasty there.

      But we now know that Venus is even hotter, even though it’s nearly twice as far from the Sun as Mercury. Why’s that?

      Well Venus has a very thick atmosphere of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide. So light energy from the Sun gets in, but can’t easily get out again (which is how the greenhouse effect works).

      Nice collection of Venus photographs here: http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/photo_gallery/photogallery-venus.html

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