The other planets in the solar system POLL

Voted Mercury because there probably isn't any mercury on Mercury.
(otoh, there isn't a Mars bar on Mars either, probably)

sad about the lack of love being displayed on this thread for Uranus, most underrated planet imo

Near the time of Uranian solstices, one pole faces the Sun continuously whereas the other one faces away. Only a narrow strip around the equator experiences a rapid day–night cycle, but with the Sun very low over the horizon as in the Earth's polar regions. At the other side of Uranus's orbit the orientation of the poles towards the Sun is reversed. Each pole gets around 42 years of continuous sunlight, followed by 42 years of darkness.

the full range of the possible, even just within an 8 (or 9) planet solar system is just so extreme that you can only vacillate between awe and terror when you contemplate it.

heheheheh you said uranian

oh wait

http://images5.fanpop.com/image/photos/28100000/Beavis-Butthead-beavis-and-butthead-28198911-450-495.jpg

runner up is Saturn bcz Titan, also Saturn has the hula hoop, it was hard not to pick it tbh

Titan is in many ways a lot more interesting than some of the planets.

Awesome poll. As a kid I would have said Saturn easy - fucking rings! - but ryan is right, all of them are so fucking strange and, yeah, 'alien,' that it seems impossible that we're part of the same set, but I'm sure the Venusians would say that about us too. I'm leaving the moons out of the equation because a lot of them would swing it on awesome names alone, let alone bizarre physical properties, and it makes it too hard.

Venus a strong contender for "so close...and yet so far" (so much that we send everything to Mars even though Venus is closer!). Mercury a blazing badass that flew too close to the sun. Pluto* for spooky cold silent distance, a place to simply sit on a desolate rock and watch from like the Little Prince's planet. Stoked that New Horizons is going to finally arrive next year and we'll get good pictures and stuff. Neptune for color, as well as craziness. But I think this really comes down to Saturn and Jupiter, which are both so fucking bizarre and sublime in scale and properties that if they weren't in our solar system you'd figure they were invented by Jules Verne. The tiebreaker was simple:

http://i459.photobucket.com/albums/qq313/doctorcasino/makoa_zpsc4d245be.jpg

these planets make me recognize the sheer unlikelihood of any single one of us being alive, let alone this planet being habitable, let alone existing. all of these other planets are like nightmarishly beautiful dionaea plants.

i think my brain has still not really wrapped itself around the concept of a giant planet made of gas. i cannot actually imagine what the surface is like!

they don't have surfaces, so to speak! their massive gravity warps a core of helium into a metallic state that generates a massive magnetic field, protecting the gaseous atmosphere, but there's no rocky core in the middle as there is with the inner four planets.

anyways would vote for saturn based on insane qualities of its moons, because seriously saturn's moons are way crazy, but i've been having recurring nightmares about jupiter since i was a kid so i figure it wins on the terror scale.

Fascinated by the mechanics of a gaseous planet and its satellites.

Another reason I voted for Neptune, having a moon as massive as Triton.

http://sites.psu.edu/tgg119/wp-content/uploads/sites/661/2013/02/pluto.jpg

xp Huh? Triton ain't all that, it is slightly smaller than our moon.

the full range of the possible, even just within an 8 (or 9) planet solar system is just so extreme that you can only vacillate between awe and terror when you contemplate it.

― ryan,

otm

☆ミOlympus Mons is 14 mile high dormant shield volcano on Mars with a base the size of France☆ミ

http://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/a000000/a002800/a002883/olympus_mons_false_web.jpg

I can remember National Geographic in the very early eighties publishing the first astonishing color photos of the outer planets as we got the Voyager images.

Olympus Mons dwarfing Everest.
http://martianchronicles.files.wordpress.com/2008/08/olympus-mons.jpg

/i think my brain has still not really wrapped itself around the concept of a giant planet made of gas. i cannot actually imagine what the surface is like!/

they don't have surfaces, so to speak! their massive gravity warps a core of helium into a metallic state that generates a massive magnetic field, protecting the gaseous atmosphere, but there's no rocky core in the middle as there is with the inner four planets.

xp Huh? Triton ain't all that, it is slightly smaller than our moon.

Ice volcanoes, retrograde orbit, probable captured KBO. Triton is still pretty awesome

I'm not taking into account the moons of the planets in this poll. Planets on their merits only.

xp Yeah, you take that back!

Neptune
Saturn
Jupiter
Venus
Mars
Mercury
Uranus
Pluto

Triton sounds amazing tbh, forgive my ignorance. I just have a thing for Titan after reading something about how it has flowing water at - 76 celsius and something called Ice 6 which reminds me of Kurt V. Talking of which it is amusing how in The Sirens of Titan there is a pill you can swallow which allows you not to get melted by the 1000 degrees heat of Venus!

Titan and Triton: Oh! I Always Get Those Two Mixed Up!

wonder where earth would place in this poll? it's a pretty fucking cool planet ya gotta admit.

It doesn't look much but it has a great atmosphere.

http://www.fortheloveofgeeks.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/06/mars_to_earth-browse.jpg

That's earth viewed from Mars.

What do people think of the idea that the current orbits of the planets are not fixed + have fluctuated wildly at times? Solar drift could be an explanation for the "snowball earth" period. I found this quite a fascinating, scary read, i am not science enough to know if it is bs.
http://nautil.us/issue/8/home/the-madness-of-the-planets

Wow, that's a cool article. I'm not science enough either, but I love the idea that actually Jupiter was basically this proto-planet mediator that roamed around and rearranged everything, basically accounting for the forms and arrangements of all the planets. Feeling better and better about voting for it.

good ole jupes

also, this could be an awesome basis for a sci-fi story:

In one version of the theory, developed by Morbidelli’s colleague David Nesvorny at the Southwest Research Institute, our solar system originally had a fifth giant planet that got ejected entirely during this commotion; if so, it is currently wandering alone among the stars.

Truly the andy gibb of planets

Planets Having Flown

gr8 article

can't decide in this poll

We have seen it snow on Mars. So until another planet has snow, it's got my vote.

http://www.nasa.gov/centers/goddard/images/content/388625main_Jupiter_Approach.gif

It's gonna be weird when we ignite that as a second sun in the year 3057.

Nothing like drunkenly googling molecular clouds and red giant branch phases on a Sunday night after bedtime.

seriously is anything weirder or more horrifying than Jupiter

Venus

I mean, I don't believe in a biblical "Hell," but Venus is hellish and imo more horrifying than Jupiter. Jupiter is just a big gas ball.

They're all impossible. There is no god.

The gas giants are just like blowing cigarette smoke into a soap bubble, except on a totally enormous scale. I voted for Neptune, so I'm not immune to their charms, but I find the rocky planets way more fascinating.

rocky-ist

I mean look at Jupiter, that...thing is for all intents and purposes "two houses over". what the hell is even going on there?

yeah i feel like the gas planets get docked a little since you can't imagine being *on* them like earth, and yet....those things are some serious happenings.

the cross-sections you see of the giants don't clear anything up, they just pile on the perversities.

Uranus: "the base of the mantle may comprise an ocean of liquid diamond, with floating solid 'diamond-bergs'. gtfo, p_p

one of lifes greatest joys tbh

https://theconcourse.deadspin.com/planets-ranked-1818586375

Uranus the most unloved of gas giants here too.

All gas giants are overrated.

1. Earth

Oh big surprise, coming from an Earth-based website.

If I can’t set foot on you, fuck you planet.

Disregarding melting or freezing to death.

https://www.universetoday.com/137252/surface-ice-mercury-previously-thought-says-new-study/

I can't remember if anyone mentioned on here that Mercury’s low axial tilt means permanently shaded regions and the presence of ice! But I'm astonished.

I would have voted for Pluto as the underdog; freezing, isolated on the periphery, with people arguing whether it even counts or not

I think those cold regions of Mercury would be fitting sites for the first extraplanetary gulags. Russians used to refer to Siberia as "the moon", forget the moon pal, you're going to the frozen lake next to the inferno!

PBS' NOVA just ran a five-part series on the planets that's worth your time. Zachary Quinto's narration gets ASMR narcoleptic but it's a great summary of where things are at. If you only watch one, go for the one on Jupiter.
https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/series/planets/

i wonder if its using the same shots or similar as brian cox's recent effort

watch both obv

counterpoint: don't watch the one with Cox and watch the other one instead.

Drink once whenever you see clumps of proto solar system material collide into each other. Drink twice if it's enough to form a planet.

chug extinction level event

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8eJM0WlEjTs

I saw Saturn through a really big telescope last week, and now Saturn is my favourite.