• Question: what is your favorite planet ant why ?x

    Asked by Barbie to Julian, Jane, Hugh, Helen, Heather on 10 Nov 2014. This question was also asked by beastybaldwin, Emily03, Rachel02, Rhysj@coolkid, LOLCharlie, Oliver Johns, connor from LIDL, I'm Called Leanne.
    • Photo: Helen Johnson

      Helen Johnson answered on 10 Nov 2014:

      I’m not sure I can decide! I like Mars, because it shows evidence that there may have been water there in the past. It has river valleys and channels in its surface, which I find pretty fascinating. It also has the largest volcano in the solar system – Olympus Mons – which is about 3 x the size of Everest!
      I think I love learning about weather on other planets the most. Mars has large dust storms, and Jupiter has the Great Red Spot – a massive hurricane-like storm about 3 times the size of Earth. There was also an article not too long ago, explaining there may be ‘diamond rain’ on Saturn and Jupiter – http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-24477667.

      My favourite planet fact is probably that if you had an UNIMAGINABLY large swimming pool, and put Saturn in, it would float.

    • Photo: Julian Onions

      Julian Onions answered on 10 Nov 2014:

      I think Saturn is my favourite planet. It was the first one I ever saw through a telescope, and even today it is still a WOW moment seeing it through even a small telescope. It has the rings of course, and one of the few moons with an atmosphere – Titan. Titan is small enough and has a dense enough atmosphere that people (in heated space suits) could actually fly unaided with wings attached – which I think would be fun. It is very cold though, with liquid methane lakes and rain.
      We have some great data on Saturn through the Cassini probe, and more data on Titan through the Huygens lander.

    • Photo: Jane MacArthur

      Jane MacArthur answered on 10 Nov 2014:

      Well my loyalty (and PhD!) is to Mars, the advantage of it being our neighbour and closer than the other planets means we have got much better at launching successful missions to visit it, and we curently have Mars Odyssey (NASA), Mars Express (ESA, European Space Agency), Mars Reconnassiance Orbiter (MRO, NASA), MAVEN (NASA) and Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM, Indian) orbiting the planet while the NASA rovers Curiousity and Opportunity explore its surface – thats 5 orbiters and 2 rovers, more than at any time previously! (Space agencies love using initials/acronyms – I will use some of them in my posts in case you want to google for further information!). The new data is piling in providing a treasure chest for scientists to analyse, as Mars has had a much more complex geological past, compared to the Moon.

      However, my first team project at a space summer school was to design a mission to the outer planets, and my team chose Uranus, which is of absolute fascination to me. Compared to the other planets, Uranus is knocked over nearly on its side, so the north pole gets 42 years of darkness then 42 years of light. The magnetic axis is not aligned with its spin axis, which also means it has a unique configuration in our Solar System. To date, only the Voyager 2 spacecraft flew by Uranus in 1986, within 82,000km, so we have very limited data about the planet so far. Uranus has been earmarked as a priority for exploration in both the NASA Decadal Survey (plan of priorities for planetary science!) and the ESA Cosmic Vision (European Space Agency equivalent plan), however we still have no mission selected, which would likely then take at least 20-25 years to design, build, and reach the distant icy giant. I would love to see a spacecraft visit Uranus in my lifetime.

    • Photo: Heather Campbell

      Heather Campbell answered on 10 Nov 2014:

      For me its hard to decide between the two big boys in our solar system!

      I’ve got a little telescope myself, and look at both of them from the back garden are great! You can see the four largest moons of Jupiter (out of 63 known moons), and you can see these change position with respect to Jupiter as they orbit around Jupiter, and sometimes ones missing when it is behind Jupiter. And as Helen says the Great Red Spot is really interesting, and its been raging in Jupiter’s atmosphere for over 400 years.

      And Saturn’s rings are great to look at. There are about 30 rings known today and a whopping 150 moons and smaller moonlets (which I think is a very cool word!)

    • Photo: Hugh Osborn

      Hugh Osborn answered on 11 Nov 2014:

      Great question. I’m going to say KIC 9632895 (AB) b [Yes, it’s a horrible name but here me out…]

      It’s a really cool ‘Tatooine planet’ that, instead of orbiting just one star, circles a double star system. They also occasionally eclipse each other – imagine standing on the surface of the planet and seeing that! The planet is also in the star’s ‘habitable zone’ so should have a temperature very similar to Earth’s, meaning it could even have life on. But, the reason it’s probably my favourite is that I helped discover it earlier this year :D.

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