- Jul 30, 2018
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- 15,178
- AFL Club
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- #676
Venus is further from the sun than Mercury and hotter than Mercury, even the side of Mercury that is tidally locked to the Sun. How is that possible using your caveats?We don't know. Its a theory like so many others.
If I had to guess I'd be looking more at the geology and thermodynamics for answers. Many planets have CO2 atmospeheres and show no signs of those temperatures so i'd guess it is likely something else causing the temps. From memory its a similar temp to Mercury and could be explained by gravitational mass, internal geology, surface morphology etc. For instance does it have graphite volcanoes belching carbon ? Carbonate rich ? Could be 1000 reasons. Being much closer to the gravitational effect and strain caused by the mass of the sun makes another 1000 theories possible. I don't think the probes we've sent provide that many answers yet. We have a theory HERE that increased CO2 leads to increased temps but it may be the complete opposite. Chicken or the egg stuff we cannot prove either way yet. Did proximity heat lead to a CO2 atmosphere ? which led to the high density ? which then leads back to increased heat ? or some sort of runaway greenhouse effect ? Any number of possibilities. Nobody can answer it with conclusive evidence.
Regardless, it isn't easy therefore to explain how cold Mars is with a similar CO2 rich atmosphere, even when taking distance into account. There are some seriously bizarre places in our solar system, with processes we would have never guessed and our theories often fail miserably to explain. What we have learnt though is that most theories based upon our planet cannot be applied elsewhere with much confidence.
I imagine anyone claiming the temps on Venus are some sort of "proof" of anything are just kidding themselves (and others).
Why does Mars not get as cold as the moon?
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