Pluto and Mars
Pluto, Is it a Planet?
Pluto. The planet that is not so much a planet anymore. Although most people grew up knowing Pluto as a planet, it is now something called a dwarf planet. The reason for this is because back in the early 1990’s, after Pluto was discovered, astronomers began to discover other planets similar to Pluto. So, rather than adding a ton of different planets, they decided to group all of these planets together into their own category, called Dwarf Planets. The astronomers also did something similar to this years prior when they found what they though to be planets, but happened to just be rocks. We now call these asteroids. One thing about Pluto that most people can agree on is that it is very interesting.
Some things that I though were interesting about Pluto is that it is the farthest of our nine planets from the sun. Also, it is not in any orbit like our other planets, it goes off-center and even goes through another planets orbit (see image below).
Pluto is also the only planet that we had not seen clear images of from a telescope until a few years ago when they launched a mission called New Horizon. New Horizon was a spacecraft that was equipped with a lot of technology that would tell us about Pluto. The spacecraft was also equipped with the most powerful rocket that had ever been used; it got to the moon 4x faster than the Apollo space missions. The most fascinating thing that the craft did was take pictures of Pluto. Day after day it would send pictures of the plant getting closer and closer.
Something strange that the New Horizon Mission discovered about Plutos largest moon is that they (Pluto and its larges moon) both orbit a point in space and are tidally locked to each other. This means that if you stand on either the moon or the planet, then look in the sky, the other one will not move from that point.
Something that you will notice right off the bat it a giant heart shaped object that is the size of Texas; this is a giant ice plain. Pluto is also very cold with a temperature of only around -229 Celsius and is composed of mostly nitrogen ice (thats the same thing that dry ice is made up of!). Being this cold, it causes some pretty distinctive features such as Mountain ranges that are made up of ice and frozen water. They also look very large because of the surface area of Pluto. Pluto cannot push down the mountains because it has such a weak gravitational pull.
Mars, the next best thing:
Mars is pretty cool because it is the closest thing to Earth that we have, for survivability at least. The reason for this is because Mars used to have water and water usually means that there were forms of life on the planet long ago. Scientists can tell that there used to be water because there are indentations of where rivers used to be that have since dried up. There are still forms of water on the planet, they just come in forms of polar ice caps. It is very cold on the planet, reaching temperatures of around -255 Fahrenheit. Temperatures used to be a lot warmer but over the years, the planet has just gotten cold and dry. Just because life is no longer on Mars, does not mean that life cant exist again, and that is what gives people hope about the red planet.
The reasoning for its red color is because the surface of Mars is made up of mostly iron. Although that should mean that the surface should be a white color, right? Well, no. The reason for the color is because Mars has trace amounts of oxygen that react with the iron, causing the iron to rust.
Something to note about Mars, is the lack of gravity. Although this causes some challenges for the future, it also causes some interesting things about the planet. One of the interesting things about the planet is the giant volcano that is 16 miles high and the diameter of Arizona. This volcano is the biggest volcano in the solar system, and the reason for it is because there is no gravity to push it over or make it lean.
Another amazing thing about Mars is a giant crater that nobody knows how it got there. When I say giant, I mean giant. This thing takes up 20 percent of Mars’ surface area and is 4 miles deep.
Something else to note is that Mars has two moons. Well, at least for now. If one of the moons keeps going on the same path that its on, it will eventually crash into the planet. This is happening because the gravitational pull of Mars is just too strong for the moon to get out of, so it is inching closer and closer to the planet. Although this won’t happen in soon, unless you consider around 30 million years soon.
Inhabiting Mars:
Although Mars’ current state is not inhabitable by humans, there are some solutions that people are coming up with. One solution that NASA came up with was a giant magnetic field. The reasoning for this would be to create an atmosphere similar to Earths. We would need this on Mars for many reasons, some of those reasons include: Without an atmosphere humans would not be able to walk, water could not flow properly, growing vegetation would be way too difficult, and building this would be almost impossible. Oh, and lets not forget the most important thing that us humans need to survive, Oxygen, having the atmosphere would allow us to breathe on Mars.
Something cool to think about is that there are actually pieces of Mars on Earth already. It happens when and asteroid or something hits Mars and a piece of Mars goes and gets caught in Earths gravitational pull. And if it doesn’t get burned up, then it will end up on Earth.
