On a happier note--Neil deGrasse Tyson is the MAN. I hope this series mentions the radical differences each body in our solar system has from one another. They all have their own very different properties and . . . behaviors. The Moons--I mean, Wow----Moon (dead but responsible for life: for our stable seasons), Phobos (gonna crash into Mars) Deimos (gonna fly away from Mars), Io (Volcanic HELL), Europa (Encased in Salt Water oceans 60 KM deep {psst: Ive no evidence, but I am sure theres some kind of life on Europa), Ganymede (Largest, bigger than Mercury, some ice and rock, Callisto (black with white craters, dead? I dont think so), Titan (Thick Methane atmosphere--rivers and lakes of methane with water-ice mountains--cold, but somethings down there), Enceledus (brightest object--water geysers at the south pole), Iapetus (White on one side, black on the other-with a rind about its equatorial region), Mimas (BIG crater), Hyperion (sponge!), Miranda (Jigsaw puzzle terrain, 12 mile-high cliffs), Triton (Black soot volcanoes? In barely more than absolute zero? Orbiting retrograde?). And the planets--why isnt Mercury tidally locked with the sun? And it is slightly out of the orbital plane. Venus day is longer than its year--its atmosphere is, well, hostile. Why does Mars polar axes have nearly the same tiltr as Earth? And its daily rotation (26 hrs) almost exactly the same as ours. Jupiter is almost 0 degrees (perpendicular to the plane) and has more than twice the mass than all the planets and moons and asteroids together and it spins in just 10 hours. Saturn . . . well, Saturns difference is obvious, Uranus is tilted so far over it appears to be rolling on its side (yet astronomers find Uranus boring--BORING? Nothing out there is boring!) And Neptune--all the way out there and theres winds sustained at 1500 mph. Its moon Triton is a captured plutoid. It will eventually ghet too close to the planet and break up. Neptune will have a ring like Saturn. So many wonders out there. They call Saturn the jewel of the Solar System. Not me. There is nothing more miraculous than this planet, Earth. Earth is the jewel of the system these days. A miracle right under our feet--how many of us realize that we are standing on a miracle every day?
Posted on: Mon, 24 Mar 2014 19:33:33 +0000