• Question: Whats your faviroute planet and why?

    Asked by to Nat, Nate, Roberto, Sam, Sarah on 17 Jun 2014. This question was also asked by .
    • Photo: Nate Bastian

      Nate Bastian answered on 17 Jun 2014:

      I’m a big fan of earth. But excluding earth, I would vote for Jupiter. While the planet itself is very interesting, it’s moon system is amazing. One of the moons, Europa, is an ice-world, but beneath the ice, there are liquid oceans. This is, in my opinion, the most likely (other than earth, of course) place for life to exist in the solar system.

    • Photo: Sarah Casewell

      Sarah Casewell answered on 17 Jun 2014:

      My favourite is Neptune – I think it’s such a beautiful colour, and even though its in our solar system we still know so little about it. I work with people who study Neptune to look for auroras (like our northern lights) and to try to understand what its atmosphere is made of.

    • Photo: Sam Connolly

      Sam Connolly answered on 17 Jun 2014:

      I’d probably have to go with Saturn. I think it’s the most beautiful planet by far, with its surface of swirling gases, and with the incredible rings which surround it. It also has a lot of interesting moons, and the most interesting thing about it is the way the moons affect the rings. If you look at a good picture of Saturn, you can see gaps in the rings – some of these are because there are little moons going around Saturn inside the rings, which such up all the little bits of rock that make up the rings! There’s a pretty amazing thing going on at the edge of the rings as well – it looks like a new moon is being made from the rocks in the rings slowly clumping together! So definitely Saturn in my opinion!

    • Photo: Natasha Stephen

      Natasha Stephen answered on 18 Jun 2014:

      Oooh, good question! I am incredibly bias though as I study rocks from Mars so I’d have to say the Red Planet; Mars!

      It’s a hard decision as all the planets in our solar system (and beyond! I am a big fan of Gilese 581g too – it’s an Exoplanet so outside our solar system, but believed to be quite similar to Earth!) are pretty cool for very different reasons. I pick Mars though because I love volcanoes and I am a geologist after all! Whilst there are lots of volcanoes in our solar system, on Venus and on some of Jupiter’s moons as well, the largest volcano anywhere in our solar system is on Mars!

      It’s called Olympus Mons (or Mount Olympus) and is three times the height of Mt. Everest on Earth! It’s so big that it pokes out through the Martian atmosphere, can be seen from Space easily and, if you were walking up it on Mars, you wouldn’t even notice you were climbing because it’s so huge that the gradient is tiny! You can’t see the bottom from the top or vice-versa!

    • Photo: Roberto Trotta

      Roberto Trotta answered on 19 Jun 2014:

      Saturn! Because of the beautiful rings, and its many moons. Also, Saturn is a very light planet (despite its size, 11 times bigger than the Earth): If there was a swimming pool big enough, it would float!

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