By SJ Otto
This is Earth Day. We only have one earth. Out of 8 major
planets, and a whole slew of midget planets and moons, the Earth is the only
planet we can really use. Of the four inner planets, Mercury is the closest to
the Sun. That planet has a north pole that has ice on it, because the Sun never
shines on it. When the middle of the planet is facing the Sun, that is the
equator of Mercury, the temperature is almost 900°. There is no atmosphere. For
that reason the night side of Mercury is about minus 200°.
In contrast, the planet Venus is just slightly hotter, but
has a thick atmosphere that holds in all the heat and the entire planet is more
than 900°. It is actually hotter than Mercury and it is hot everywhere, not
just the sunny side of the equator.
Past the Earth is the planet Mars. It is the most Earthlike
planet and it is not all THAT Earth-like. It is colder. In the day it averages
50° to 30°. Late at night it is colder than the South Pole in the winter time.
On the surface of the planet, the radiation from the sun kills any living
things. Their may be some life below ground, but no one knows that yet.
Past the inter-planets are the gas giants, Jupiter, Saturn,
Uranus and Neptune. Those planets are giant balls of gas and there is no where
to land on those planets or stand on them. Uranus and Neptune may have solid
places to land, but the air pressure that far into them would crush any attempt
by US astronauts to land there.
Around Jupiter is the moon Europa, which has an ocean below the
surface and may have life in it. Around Saturn there is the moon Enceladus which also might
have an ocean below and life in it. Then there is the moons Titan.
Titan is like a frozen Earth. It has organic molecules,
liquid rain and lakes of methane and ethane. This moon has a very thick atmosphere,
about twice as thick as Earth. It may have some kind of life.
When I saw the surface of that moon, from a NASA space ship,
I realized there are some fascinating places in our own solar system. However
the temperature on that moon is −290 °F.
The Earth is the only place we can really live and most
humans have trashed this planet and they just don’t really care. We live under
capitalism and under that system there is no concern over the destruction of
our atmosphere, of our ecology and the other animals that share the Earth with
us. As long as we live under this system, Earth Day will be nothing more than a
joke. Saving our planet is a joke as long as we allow greedy capitalist trolls
to run it.
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