We're Going To Take You To The Storm Tour Through The Solar System

Being a dynamic and stormy planet, the Earth has everything from brief thundering storms to huge, furious hurricanes, which are some of the most powerful and destructive storms in our world. But there are other planets that also have storm clouds and lightning, including rain, so to speak.

1. Mercury: Morning micrometeoroid showers and magnetic "tornadoes"

Have you ever thought about a micrometeoroid shower to start your day? Mercury, the planet closest to the Sun, is burning, with daytime temperatures of more than 800 degrees Fahrenheit (around 430 degrees Celsius). With a weak gravity, it has only about 38% of the Earth, which makes it difficult for Mercury to cling to an atmosphere.

2 Venus: the 'almost' twin of Earth is a disaster

Often called Earth's twin, the two planets Earth and Venus are similar in size and structure. But Venus is the hottest planet in our solar system, which is roasted at about 900 degrees Fahrenheit (480 degrees Celsius) under a suffocating blanket of clouds of sulfuric acid and a crushing atmosphere.

3. Earth: Probable Risk of Multiple Storms

The Earth has many storms, including thunderstorms, blizzards and tornadoes. Tornadoes can accumulate winds of more than 300 miles per hour (480 kilometers per hour) and can become the reason of intense localized damage.

4. Mars: foggy with probability of dust storms

Mars is famous for the intense dust storms, including some that grow to surround the planet. In 2018, a global dust storm covered NASA's Opportunity Rover record, ending the mission after 15 years on the surface.

5. Jupiter: an icon that shrinks

The Great Red Spot of Jupiter is one of the most known storms in the solar system. It has been maintained for at least 300 years, but it has been shrinking for a century and a half. No one knows for sure, but it is possible that the Great Red Spot may disappear.

6. Saturn: a paradise for storm hunters

Saturn has one of the most extraordinary atmospheric characteristics of the solar system: a pattern of clouds in the form of a hexagon at its north pole. The hexagon is a six-sided jet stream with winds of 200 miles per hour (about 322 kilometers per hour). Each side is a little wider than the Earth and several Earths could fit inside. In the middle of the hexagon is what looks like a cosmic navel, but in reality, it is a huge vortex that looks like a hurricane.

7. Titan: Methane rain and dust storms

Earth is not the only world in our solar system with bodies of liquid on its surface. Saturn's moon, Titan, has rivers, lakes and great seas. It is the only other world with a cycle of liquids like the water cycle of the Earth, with the rain that falls from the clouds, flows through the surface, filling the lakes and seas and evaporating again in the sky. But on Titan, rain, rivers and seas are made of methane instead of water.

8. Uranus: a polar storm and ... What is that smell?

Uranus has long been the target of jokes and some new research can make things worse.

The scientists were trying to solve a puzzle about the clouds on the giant ice planet: what were they made of? When Voyager 2 flew by in 1986, it saw few clouds. Layer of stormy clouds in the north pole of Uranus. In 2018, researchers using the Gemini North telescope on Hawaii's Mauna Kea found that clouds on Uranus are composed of hydrogen sulphide, the stinking gas that smells like rotten eggs.

9. Neptune: Methane clouds and disappearing storms

Neptune is the windiest world in our solar system. Winds whip methane clouds frozen through the giant ice planet at speeds of more than 1,200 miles per hour (2,000 kilometers per hour), approximately nine times faster than winds on Earth.

10. It's not just us: extreme weather in another solar system

The scientists who used NASA's Hubble Space Telescope made a global map of the brightness of a turbulent planet outside our solar system. The observations show that the exoplanet, called WASP-43b, is a world of extremes. It has winds that howl at the speed of sound, a daytime side of 3,000 degrees Fahrenheit (1,600 degrees Celsius) and a dark side at night where temperatures are colder, but still about 1,000 degrees Fahrenheit (540 degrees Celsius).

 

By: Preeti Narula

Content: https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/news/946/10-things-tour-of-storms-across-the-solar-system/