• Question: is there any planet that has an atphoshere? if yes which one?

    Asked by tonieastup123 to Adam, Catherine, Karen, Leila, Nazim on 15 Mar 2012.
    • Photo: Adam Stevens

      Adam Stevens answered on 15 Mar 2012:

      Mercury is really the only planet that /doesn’t/ have an atmosphere, and even that has a tiny one.

      Venus has a really thick atmosphere, much thicker than ours, mostly carbon dioxide.

      We have a mostly nitrogen and oxygen atmosphere, which is pretty rare.

      Mars has a very thin carbon dioxide atmosphere.

      Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune are pretty much /all/ atmosphere. Their are mostly made of hydrogen, helium (these gases are so light that they escape from smaller planets that have less gravity) with clouds of methane, ammonia and even water.

    • Photo: Karen Masters

      Karen Masters answered on 16 Mar 2012:

      You can do an experiment to answer this yourself. Walk outside…. can you breathe?

      If you mean a planet other than Earth – then yes. Venus has a really think atmosphere which makes the surface really really hot.

    • Photo: Nazim Bharmal

      Nazim Bharmal answered on 18 Mar 2012:

      Almost all the planets have some sort of atmosphere, even the Moon has a very thin one. But only the Earth has an atmosphere with oxygen that we can breathe.

      Mars is mainly carbon dioxide, like Venus, and Jupiter, Saturn, and Neptune are mainly hydrogen or hydrocarbons. Pluto’s is mainly nitrogen, I think, and is interesting because it entirely freezes in the Plutonian winter and then melts again in their summer, so it occasionally disappears!

      The atmosphere of Mercury is very thin too, because it is so near the sun.

    • Photo: Leila Battison

      Leila Battison answered on 19 Mar 2012:

      Yes! Lots of planets have atmospheres, some thicker than ours, and some so thin and diffuse that we can barely detect them…

      Venus has a thick dense atmosphere of carbon dioxide and nitrogen, making a really strong greenhouse effect that makes it nearly 700 degrees C on the surface!

      Mars has an atmosphere of carbon dioxide that is nearly 1000 times less dense than the Earth’s atmosphere, which is why it’s so cold on the surface.

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