# Earth as a Planet

## Cosmic Influences on the Evolution of Earth

### Learning Objectives

By the end of this section, you will be able to:
1. Explain the scarcity of impact craters on Earth compared with other planets and moons
2. Describe the evidence for recent impacts on Earth
3. Detail how a massive impact changed the conditions for life on Earth, leading to the extinction of the dinosaurs
4. Describe how impacts have influenced the evolution of life on Earth
5. Discuss the search for objects that could potentially collide with our planet
In discussing Earth’s geology earlier in this chapter, we dealt only with the effects of internal forces, expressed through the processes of plate tectonics and volcanism. On the Moon, in contrast, we see primarily craters, produced by the impacts of interplanetary debris such as asteroids and comets. Why don’t we see more evidence on Earth of the kinds of impact craters that are so prominent on the Moon and other worlds?

### Where Are the Craters on Earth?

It is not possible that Earth escaped being struck by the interplanetary debris that has pockmarked the Moon. From a cosmic perspective, the Moon is almost next door. Our atmosphere does make small pieces of cosmic debris burn up (which we see as meteors—commonly called shooting stars). But, the layers of our air provide no shield against the large impacts that form craters several kilometers in diameter and are common on the Moon.
In the course of its history, Earth must therefore have been impacted as heavily as the Moon. The difference is that, on Earth, these craters are destroyed by our active geology before they can accumulate. As plate tectonics constantly renews our crust, evidence of past cratering events is slowly erased. Only in the past few decades have geologists succeeded in identifying the eroded remnants of many impact craters (). Even more recent is our realization that, over the history of Earth, these impacts have had an important influence on the evolution of life.

### Recent Impacts

The collision of interplanetary debris with Earth is not a hypothetical idea. Evidence of relatively recent impacts can be found on our planet’s surface. One well-studied historic collision took place on June 30, 1908, near the Tunguska River in Siberia. In this desolate region, there was a remarkable explosion in the atmosphere about 8 kilometers above the surface. The shock wave flattened more than a thousand square kilometers of forest (). Herds of reindeer and other animals were killed, and a man at a trading post 80 kilometers from the blast was thrown from his chair and knocked unconscious. The blast wave spread around the world, as recorded by instruments designed to measure changes in atmospheric pressure.
Despite this violence, no craters were formed by the Tunguska explosion. Shattered by atmospheric pressure, the stony projectile with a diameter of approximately 60 meters disintegrated above our planet’s surface to create a blast equivalent to a 10-megaton nuclear bomb. Had it been smaller or more fragile, the impacting body would have dissipated its energy at high altitude and probably attracted no attention. Today, such high-altitude atmospheric explosions are monitored regularly by military surveillance systems.
If it had been larger or made of stronger material (such as metal), the Tunguska projectile would have penetrated all the way to the surface of Earth and exploded to form a crater. Instead, only the heat and shock of the atmospheric explosion reached the surface, but the devastation it left behind in Siberia bore witness to the power of such impacts. Imagine if the same rocky impactor had exploded over New York City in 1908; history books might today record it as one of the most deadly events in human history.
Tens of thousands of people witnessed directly the explosion of a smaller (20-meter) projectile over the Russian city of Chelyabinsk on an early winter morning in 2013. It exploded at a height of 21 kilometers in a burst of light brighter than the Sun, and the shockwave of the 0.5-megaton explosion broke tens of thousands of windows and sent hundreds of people to the hospital. Rock fragments (meteorites) were easily collected by people in the area after the blast because they landed on fresh snow.
The best-known recent crater on Earth was formed about 50,000 years ago in Arizona. The projectile in this case was a lump of iron about 40 meters in diameter. Now called Meteor Crater and a major tourist attraction on the way to the Grand Canyon, the crater is about a mile across and has all the features associated with similar-size lunar impact craters (). Meteor Crater is one of the few impact features on Earth that remains relatively intact; some older craters are so eroded that only a trained eye can distinguish them. Nevertheless, more than 150 have been identified. (See the list of suggested online sites at the end of this chapter if you want to find out more about these other impact scars.)

### Mass Extinction

The impact that produced Meteor Crater would have been dramatic indeed to any humans who witnessed it (from a safe distance) since the energy release was equivalent to a 10-megaton nuclear bomb. But such explosions are devastating only in their local areas; they have no global consequences. Much larger (and rarer) impacts, however, can disturb the ecological balance of the entire planet and thus influence the course of evolution.
The best-documented large impact took place 65 million years ago, at the end of what is now called the Cretaceous period of geological history. This time in the history of life on Earth was marked by a mass extinction, in which more than half of the species on our planet died out. There are a dozen or more mass extinctions in the geological record, but this particular event has always intrigued paleontologists because it marks the end of the dinosaur age. For tens of millions of years these great creatures had flourished and dominated. Then, they suddenly disappeared (along with many other species), and thereafter mammals began the development and diversification that ultimately led to all of us.
The object that collided with Earth at the end of the Cretaceous period struck a shallow sea in what is now the Yucatán peninsula of Mexico. Its mass must have been more than a trillion tons, determined from study of a worldwide layer of sediment deposited from the dust cloud that enveloped the planet after its impact. First identified in 1979, this sediment layer is rich in the rare metal iridium and other elements that are relatively abundant in asteroids and comets, but exceedingly rare in Earth’s crust. Even though it was diluted by the material that the explosion excavated from the surface of Earth, this cosmic component can still be identified. In addition, this layer of sediment contains many minerals characteristic of the temperatures and pressures of a gigantic explosion.
The impact that led to the extinction of dinosaurs released energy equivalent to 5 billion Hiroshima-size nuclear bombs and excavated a crater 200 kilometers across and deep enough to penetrate through Earth’s crust. This large crater, named Chicxulub for a small town near its center, has subsequently been buried in sediment, but its outlines can still be identified (). The explosion that created the Chicxulub crater lifted about 100 trillion tons of dust into the atmosphere. We can determine this amount by measuring the thickness of the sediment layer that formed when this dust settled to the surface.
Such a quantity of airborne material would have blocked sunlight completely, plunging Earth into a period of cold and darkness that lasted several months. Many plants dependent on sunlight would have died, leaving plant-eating animals without a food supply. Other worldwide effects included large-scale fires (started by the hot, flying debris from the explosion) that destroyed much of the planet’s forests and grasslands, and a long period in which rainwater around the globe was acidic. It was these environmental effects, rather than the explosion itself, that were responsible for the mass extinction, including the demise of the dinosaurs.

### Impacts and the Evolution of Life

It is becoming clear that many—perhaps most—mass extinctions in Earth’s long history resulted from a variety of other causes, but in the case of the dinosaur killer, the cosmic impact certainly played a critical role and may have been the “final straw” in a series of climactic disturbances that resulted in the “great dying.”
A catastrophe for one group of living things, however, may create opportunities for another group. Following each mass extinction, there is a sudden evolutionary burst as new species develop to fill the ecological niches opened by the event. Sixty-five million years ago, our ancestors, the mammals, began to thrive when so many other species died out. We are the lucky beneficiaries of this process.
Impacts by comets and asteroids represent the only mechanisms we know of that could cause truly global catastrophes and seriously influence the evolution of life all over the planet. As paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould of Harvard noted, such a perspective changes fundamentally our view of biological evolution. The central issues for the survival of a species must now include more than just its success in competing with other species and adapting to slowly changing environments, as envisioned by Darwin’s idea of natural selection. Also required is an ability to survive random global catastrophes due to impacts.
Still earlier in its history, Earth was subject to even larger impacts from the leftover debris of planet formation. We know that the Moon was struck repeatedly by objects larger than 100 kilometers in diameter—1000 times more massive than the object that wiped out most terrestrial life 65 million years ago. Earth must have experienced similar large impacts during its first 700 million years of existence. Some of them were probably violent enough to strip the planet of most its atmosphere and to boil away its oceans. Such events would sterilize the planet, destroying any life that had begun. Life may have formed and been wiped out several times before our own microbial ancestors took hold sometime about 4 billion years ago.
The fact that the oldest surviving microbes on Earth are thermophiles (adapted to very high temperatures) can also be explained by such large impacts. An impact that was just a bit too small to sterilize the planet would still have destroyed anything that lived in what we consider “normal” environments, and only the creatures adapted to high temperatures would survive. Thus, the oldest surviving terrestrial lifeforms are probably the remnants of a sort of evolutionary bottleneck caused by repeated large impacts early in the planet’s history.

### Impacts in Our Future?

The impacts by asteroids and comets that have had such a major influence on life are not necessarily a thing of the past. In the full scope of planetary history, 65 million years ago was just yesterday. Earth actually orbits the Sun within a sort of cosmic shooting gallery, and although major impacts are rare, they are by no means over. Humanity could suffer the same fate as the dinosaurs, or lose a city to the much more frequent impacts like the one over Tunguska, unless we figure out a way to predict the next big impact and to protect our planet. The fact that our solar system is home to some very large planets in outer orbits may be beneficial to us; the gravitational fields of those planets can be very effective at pulling in cosmic debris and shielding us from larger, more frequent impacts.
Beginning in the 1990s, a few astronomers began to analyze the cosmic impact hazard and to persuade the government to support a search for potentially hazardous asteroids. Several small but sophisticated wide-field telescopes are now used for this search, which is called the NASA Spaceguard Survey. Already we know that there are currently no asteroids on a collision course with Earth that are as big (10–15 kilometers) as the one that killed the dinosaurs. The Spaceguard Survey now concentrates on finding smaller potential impactors. By 2021, the search had netted more than 98 percent of the hazardous near-Earth asteroids larger than 1 kilometer. The Spaceguard Survey will soon be augmented by the Vera Rubin Telescope that will scan the full sky on a regular basis, and an orbiting search telescope is under development by NASA. Of course, we cannot make a similar statement about the asteroids that have not yet been discovered, but these will be found and evaluated one by one for their potential hazard. These asteroid surveys are one of the few really life-and-death projects carried out by astronomers, with a potential to help to save our planet from future major impacts. Scientists are now studying how we could protect ourselves from an impact if a large asteroid were discovered on a collision course. The NASA spacecraft called DART (Double Asteroid Redirection Test), launched in late 2021, will demonstrate one example of such technology by crashing into the small asteroid Diomorphos to slightly alter its orbit.

### Key Concepts and Summary

Earth, like the Moon and other planets, has been influenced by the impacts of cosmic debris, including such recent examples as Meteor Crater and the Tunguska explosion. Larger past impacts are implicated in some mass extinctions, including the large impact 65 million years ago at the end of the Cretaceous period that wiped out the dinosaurs and many other species. Today, astronomers are working to predict the next impact in advance, while other scientists are coming to grips with the effect of impacts on the evolution and diversity of life on Earth.

### For Further Exploration

### Articles

### Earth

Collins, W., et al. “The Physical Science behind Climate Change.” Scientific American (August 2007): 64. Why scientists are now confident that human activities are changing our planet’s climate.
Glatzmaier, G., & Olson, P. “Probing the Geodynamo.” Scientific American (April 2005): 50. Experiments and modeling that tell us about the source and reversals of Earth’s magnetic field.
Gurnis, M. “Sculpting the Earth from Inside Out.” Scientific American (March 2001): 40. On motions that lift and lower the continents.
Hartmann, W. “Piecing Together Earth’s Early History.” Astronomy (June 1989): 24.
Jewitt, D., & Young, E. “Oceans from the Skies.” Scientific American (March 2015): 36. How did Earth get its water after its initial hot period?

### Impacts

Boslaugh, M. “In Search of Death-Plunge Asteroids.” Astronomy (July 2015): 28. On existing and proposed programs to search for earth-crossing asteroids.
Brusatte, S. “What Killed the Dinosaurs?” Scientific American (December 2015): 54. The asteroid hit Earth at an already vulnerable time.
Chyba, C. “Death from the Sky: Tunguska.” Astronomy (December 1993): 38. Excellent review article.
Durda, D. “The Chelyabinsk Super-Meteor.” Sky & Telescope (June 2013): 24. A nice summary with photos and eyewitness reporting.
Gasperini, L., et al. “The Tunguska Mystery.” Scientific American (June 2008): 80. A more detailed exploration of the site of the 1908 impact over Siberia.
Kring, D. “Blast from the Past.” Astronomy (August 2006): 46. Six-page introduction to Arizona’s meteor crater.

### Websites

### Earth

Astronaut Photography of Earth from Space: https://eol.jsc.nasa.gov/. A site with many images and good information.
Exploration of the Earth’s Magnetosphere: http://phy6.org/Education/Intro.html. An educational website by Dr. Daniel Stern.
NASA Goddard: Earth from Space: Fifteen Amazing Things in 15 Years: https://www.nasa.gov/content/goddard/earth-from-space-15-amazing-things-in-15-years. Images and videos that reveal things about our planet and its atmosphere.
U.S. Geological Survey: Earthquake Information Center: http://earthquake.usgs.gov/learn/
Views of the Solar System: http://www.solarviews.com/eng/earth.htm. Overview of Earth.

### Impacts

B612 Foundation : https://b612foundation.org/. Set up by several astronauts for research and education about the asteroid threat to Earth and to build a telescope in space to search for dangerous asteroids.
Lunar and Planetary Institute: Introduction to Terrestrial Impact Craters: http://www.lpi.usra.edu/publications/slidesets/craters/. Includes images.
Meteor Crater Tourist Site: http://meteorcrater.com/.
NASA/Jet Propulsion Lab Near Earth Object Program: http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/neo/.
What Are Near-Earth-Objects: http://spaceguardcentre.com/what-are-neos/. From the British Spaceguard Centre.

### Videos

### Earth

All Alone in the Night: http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap120305.html. Flying over Earth at night (2:30).
Earth: The Operator’s Manual: http://earththeoperatorsmanual.com/feature-video/earth-the-operators-manual. A National Science Foundation–sponsored miniseries on climate change and energy, with geologist Richard Alley (53:43).
PBS NOVA Videos about Earth: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/earth/. Programs and information about planet Earth. Click full episodes on the menu at left to be taken to a nice array of videos.
U. S. National Weather Service: http://earth.nullschool.net. Real Time Globe of Earth showing wind patterns which can be zoomed and moved to your preferred view.

### Impacts

Chelyabinsk Meteor: Can We Survive a Bigger Impact?: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y-e6xyUZLLs. Talk by Dr. David Morrison (1:34:48).
Large Asteroid Impact Simulation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bU1QPtOZQZU. Large asteroid impact simulation from the Discovery Channel (4:45).
Meteor Hits Russia February 15, 2013: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dpmXyJrs7iU. Archive of eyewitness footage (10:11).
Sentinel Mission: Finding an Asteroid Headed for Earth: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=efz8c3ijD_A. Public lecture by astronaut Ed Lu (1:08:57).

### Collaborative Group Activities

1. If we can predict that lots of ground movement takes place along subduction zones and faults, then why do so many people live there? Should we try to do anything to discourage people from living in these areas? What inducement would your group offer people to move? Who would pay for the relocation? (Note that two of the original authors of this book live quite close to the San Andreas and Hayward faults. If they wrote this chapter and haven’t moved, what are the chances others living in these kinds of areas will move?)
2. After your group reads the feature box on Alfred Wegener: Catching the Drift of Plate Tectonics, discuss some reasons his idea did not catch on right away among scientists. From your studies in this course and in other science courses (in college and before), can you cite other scientific ideas that we now accept but that had controversial beginnings? Can you think of any scientific theories that are still controversial today? If your group comes up with some, discuss ways scientists could decide whether each theory on your list is right.
3. Suppose we knew that a large chunk of rock or ice (about the same size as the one that hit 65 million years ago) will impact Earth in about 5 years. What could or should we do about it? (The film Deep Impact dealt with this theme.) Does your group think that the world as a whole should spend more money to find and predict the orbits of cosmic debris near Earth?
4. Carl Sagan pointed out that any defensive weapon that we might come up with to deflect an asteroid away from Earth could be used as an offensive weapon by an unstable dictator in the future to cause an asteroid not heading our way to come toward Earth. The history of human behavior, he noted, has shown that most weapons that are built (even with the best of motives) seem to wind up being used. Bearing this in mind, does your group think we should be building weapons to protect Earth from asteroid or comet impact? Can we afford not to build them? How can we safeguard against these collisions?
5. Is there evidence of climate change in your area over the past century? How would you distinguish a true climate change from the random variations in weather that take place from one year to the next?

### Review Questions

### Thought Questions

### Figuring for Yourself


# Cratered Worlds

## Thinking Ahead

The Moon is the only other world human beings have ever visited. What is it like to stand on the surface of our natural satellite? And what can we learn from going there and bringing home pieces of a different world?
We begin our discussion of the planets as cratered worlds with two relatively simple objects: the Moon and Mercury. Unlike Earth, the Moon is geologically dead, a place that has exhausted its internal energy sources. Because its airless surface preserves events that happened long ago, the Moon provides a window on earlier epochs of solar system history. The planet Mercury is in many ways similar to the Moon, which is why the two are discussed together: both are relatively small, lacking in atmospheres, deficient in geological activity, and dominated by the effects of impact cratering. Still, the processes that have molded their surfaces are not unique to these two worlds. We shall see that they have acted on many other members of the planetary system as well.


# Cratered Worlds

## General Properties of the Moon

### Learning Objectives

By the end of this section, you will be able to:
1. Discuss what has been learned from both manned and robotic lunar exploration
2. Describe the composition and structure of the Moon
The Moon has only one-eightieth the mass of Earth and about one-sixth Earth’s surface gravity—too low to retain an atmosphere (). Moving molecules of a gas can escape from a planet just the way a rocket does, and the lower the gravity, the easier it is for the gas to leak away into space. While the Moon can acquire a temporary atmosphere from impacting comets, this atmosphere is quickly lost by freezing onto the surface or by escape to surrounding space. The Moon today is dramatically deficient in a wide range of volatiles, those elements and compounds that evaporate at relatively low temperatures. Some of the Moon’s properties are summarized in , along with comparative values for Mercury.

### Exploration of the Moon

Most of what we know about the Moon today derives from the US Apollo program, which sent nine piloted spacecraft to our satellite between 1968 and 1972, landing 12 astronauts on its surface (). Before the era of spacecraft studies, astronomers had mapped the side of the Moon that faces Earth with telescopic resolution of about 1 kilometer, but lunar geology hardly existed as a scientific subject. All that changed beginning in the early 1960s. Initially, Russia took the lead in lunar exploration with Luna 3, which returned the first photos of the lunar far side in 1959, and then with Luna 9, which landed on the surface in 1966 and transmitted pictures and other data to Earth. However, these efforts were overshadowed on July 20, 1969, when the first American astronaut set foot on the Moon.
 summarizes the nine Apollo flights: six that landed and three others that circled the Moon but did not land. The initial landings were on flat plains selected for safety reasons. But with increasing experience and confidence, NASA targeted the last three missions to more geologically interesting locales. The level of scientific exploration also increased with each mission, as the astronauts spent longer times on the Moon and carried more elaborate equipment. Finally, on the last Apollo landing, NASA included one scientist, geologist Jack Schmitt, among the astronauts ().
In addition to landing on the lunar surface and studying it at close range, the Apollo missions accomplished three objectives of major importance for lunar science. First, the astronauts collected nearly 400 kilograms of samples for detailed laboratory analysis on Earth (). These samples have revealed as much about the Moon and its history as all other lunar studies combined. Second, each Apollo landing after the first one deployed an Apollo Lunar Surface Experiment Package (ALSEP), which continued to operate for years after the astronauts departed. Third, the orbiting Apollo command modules carried a wide range of instruments to photograph and analyze the lunar surface from above.
The last human left the Moon in December 1972, just a little more than three years after Neil Armstrong took his “giant leap for mankind.” The program of lunar exploration was cut off midstride due to political and economic pressures. It had cost just about $100 per American, spread over 10 years—the equivalent of one large pizza per person per year. Yet for many people, the Moon landings were one of the central events in twentieth-century history.
The giant Apollo rockets built to travel to the Moon were left to rust on the lawns of NASA centers, although recently, some have at least been moved indoors to museums (). It has been more than 50 years since astronauts landed on the Moon, but now there is increased interest in both the United States and China in future human lunar flights. NASA has established a program called Artemis, named for the twin of the ancient Greek god Apollo, which plans to place astronauts in lunar orbit by the mid-2020s. The first test flight of the huge new Space Launch System rocket sent an uncrewed vehicle around the Moon and back in late 2022. Artemis will focus on landings near the lunar poles, and NASA will include both women and people of color in the astronaut crews. China is one other country that has expressed interest in sending humans to the Moon, and in late 2022, they completed their own space station in Earth orbit as a first step.
In a bizarre piece of irony, a few people even question whether we went to the Moon at all, proposing instead that the Apollo program was a fake, filmed on a Hollywood sound stage. See the Link to Learning box below for some scientists’ replies to such claims. In the meantime, scientific interest in the Moon is stronger than ever, and more than half a dozen scientific spacecraft—sent from NASA, ESA, Japan, India, and China—have orbited or landed on our nearest neighbor during the past two decades.

Lunar exploration has become an international enterprise with many robotic spacecraft focusing on lunar science. The USSR sent a number in the 1960s, including robot sample returns, and recently China has been active, with three landers and a sample return mission. Of special interest is the search for accessible water ice near the lunar South Pole.  lists some of the most recent lunar missions.

### Composition and Structure of the Moon

The composition of the Moon is not the same as that of Earth. With an average density of only 3.3 g/cm3, the Moon must be made almost entirely of silicate rock. Compared to Earth, it is depleted in iron and other metals. It is as if the Moon were composed of the same silicates as Earth’s mantle and crust, with the metals and the volatiles selectively removed. These differences in composition between Earth and Moon provide important clues about the origin of the Moon, a topic we will cover in detail later in this chapter.
Studies of the Moon’s interior carried out with seismometers taken to the Moon as part of the Apollo program confirm the absence of a large metal core. The twin GRAIL spacecraft launched into lunar orbit in 2011 provided even more precise tracking of the interior structure. We also know from the study of lunar samples that water and other volatiles have been depleted from the lunar crust. The tiny amounts of water detected in these samples were originally attributed to small leaks in the container seal that admitted water vapor from Earth’s atmosphere. However, scientists have now concluded that some chemically bound water is present in the lunar rocks.
Most dramatically, water ice has been detected in permanently shadowed craters near the lunar poles. In 2009, NASA crashed a small spacecraft called the Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS) into the crater Cabeus near the Moon’s south pole. The impact at 9,000 kilometers per hour released energy equivalent to 2 tons of dynamite, blasting a plume of water vapor and other chemicals high above the surface. This plume was visible to telescopes in orbit around the Moon, and the LCROSS spacecraft itself made measurements as it flew through the plume. A NASA spacecraft called the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) also measured the very low temperatures inside several lunar craters, and its sensitive cameras were even able to image crater interiors by starlight.
The total quantity of water ice in the Moon’s polar craters is estimated to be hundreds of billions of tons. As liquid, this would only be enough water to fill a lake 100 miles across, but compared with the rest of the dry lunar crust, so much water is remarkable. Presumably, this polar water was carried to the Moon by comets and asteroids that hit its surface. Some small fraction of the water froze in a few extremely cold regions (cold traps) where the Sun never shines, such as the bottom of deep craters at the Moon’s poles. One reason this discovery could be important is that it raises the possibility of future human habitation near the lunar poles, or even of a lunar base as a way-station on routes to Mars and the rest of the solar system. If the ice could be mined, it would yield both water and oxygen for human support, and it could be broken down into hydrogen and oxygen, a potent rocket fuel.

### Key Concepts and Summary

Most of what we know about the Moon derives from the Apollo program, including 400 kilograms of lunar samples still being intensively studied. The Moon has one-eightieth the mass of Earth and is severely depleted in both metals and volatile materials. It is made almost entirely of silicates like those in Earth’s mantle and crust. However, more recent spacecraft have found evidence of a small amount of water near the lunar poles, most likely deposited by comet and asteroid impacts.


# Cratered Worlds

## The Lunar Surface

### Learning Objectives

By the end of this section, you will be able to:
1. Differentiate between the major surface features of the Moon
2. Describe the history of the lunar surface
3. Describe the properties of the lunar “soil”

### General Appearance

If you look at the Moon through a telescope, you can see that it is covered by impact craters of all sizes. The most conspicuous of the Moon’s surface features—those that can be seen with the unaided eye and that make up the feature often called “the man in the Moon”—are vast splotches of darker lava flows.
Centuries ago, early lunar observers thought that the Moon had continents and oceans and that it was a possible abode of life. They called the dark areas “seas” (maria in Latin, or mare in the singular, pronounced “mah ray”). Their names, Mare Nubium (Sea of Clouds), Mare Tranquillitatis (Sea of Tranquility), and so on, are still in use today. In contrast, the “land” areas between the seas are not named. Thousands of individual craters have been named, however, mostly for great scientists and philosophers (). Among the most prominent craters are those named for Plato, Copernicus, Tycho, and Kepler. Galileo only has a small crater, however, reflecting his low standing among the Vatican scientists who made some of the first lunar maps.
We know today that the resemblance of lunar features to terrestrial ones is superficial. Even when they look somewhat similar, the origins of lunar features such as craters and mountains are very different from their terrestrial counterparts. The Moon’s relative lack of internal activity, together with the absence of air and water, make most of its geological history unlike anything we know on Earth.

### Lunar History

To trace the detailed history of the Moon or of any planet, we must be able to estimate the ages of individual rocks. Once lunar samples were brought back by the Apollo astronauts, the radioactive dating techniques that had been developed for Earth were applied to them. The solidification ages of the samples ranged from about 3.3 to 4.4 billion years old, substantially older than most of the rocks on Earth. For comparison, as we saw in the chapter on Earth, Moon, and Sky, both Earth and the Moon were formed between 4.5 and 4.6 billion years ago.
Most of the crust of the Moon (83%) consists of silicate rocks called anorthosites; these regions are known as the lunar highlands. They are made of relatively low-density rock that solidified on the cooling Moon like slag floating on the top of a smelter. Because they formed so early in lunar history (between 4.1 and 4.4 billion years ago), the highlands are also extremely heavily cratered, bearing the scars of all those billions of years of impacts by interplanetary debris ().
Unlike the mountains on Earth, the Moon’s highlands do not have any sharp folds in their ranges. The highlands have low, rounded profiles that resemble the oldest, most eroded mountains on Earth (). Because there is no atmosphere or water on the Moon, there has been no wind, water, or ice to carve them into cliffs and sharp peaks, the way we have seen them shaped on Earth. Their smooth features are attributed to gradual erosion, mostly due to impact cratering.
The maria are much less cratered than the highlands, and cover just 17% of the lunar surface, mostly on the side of the Moon that faces Earth ().
Today, we know that the maria consist mostly of dark-colored basalt (volcanic lava) laid down in volcanic eruptions billions of years ago. Eventually, these lava flows partly filled the huge depressions called impact basins, which had been produced by collisions of large chunks of material with the Moon relatively early in its history. The basalt on the Moon () is very similar in composition to the crust under the oceans of Earth or to the lavas erupted by many terrestrial volcanoes. The youngest of the lunar impact basins is Mare Orientale, shown in .
Volcanic activity may have begun very early in the Moon’s history, although most evidence of the first half billion years is lost. What we do know is that the major mare volcanism, which involved the release of lava from hundreds of kilometers below the surface, ended about 3.3 billion years ago. After that, the Moon’s interior cooled, and volcanic activity was limited to a very few small areas. The primary forces altering the surface come from the outside, not the interior.

### On the Lunar Surface

“The surface is fine and powdery. I can pick it up loosely with my toe. But I can see the footprints of my boots and the treads in the fine sandy particles.” —Neil Armstrong, Apollo 11 astronaut, immediately after stepping onto the Moon for the first time.
The surface of the Moon is buried under a fine-grained soil of tiny, shattered rock fragments. The dark basaltic dust of the lunar maria was kicked up by every astronaut footstep, and thus eventually worked its way into all of the astronauts’ equipment. The upper layers of the surface are porous, consisting of loosely packed dust into which their boots sank several centimeters (). This lunar dust, like so much else on the Moon, is the product of impacts. Each cratering event, large or small, breaks up the rock of the lunar surface and scatters the fragments. Ultimately, billions of years of impacts have reduced much of the surface layer to particles about the size of dust or sand.
In the absence of any air, the lunar surface experiences much greater temperature extremes than the surface of Earth, even though Earth is virtually the same distance from the Sun. Near local noon, when the Sun is highest in the sky, the temperature of the dark lunar soil rises above the boiling point of water. During the long lunar night (which, like the lunar day, lasts two Earth weeksYou can see the cycle of day and night on the side of the Moon facing us in the form of the Moon’s phases. It takes about 14 days for the side of the Moon facing us to go from full moon (all lit up) to new moon (all dark). There is more on this in ), the temperature drops to about 100 K (–173 °C). The extreme cooling is a result not only of the absence of air but also of the porous nature of the Moon’s dusty soil, which cools more rapidly than solid rock would.

### Key Concepts and Summary

The Moon, like Earth, was formed about 4.5 billion years ago. The Moon’s heavily cratered highlands are made of rocks more than 4 billion years old. The darker volcanic plains of the maria were erupted primarily between 3.3 and 3.8 billion years ago. Generally, the surface is dominated by impacts, including continuing small impacts that produce its fine-grained soil.


# Cratered Worlds

## Impact Craters

### Learning Objectives

By the end of this section, you will be able to:
1. Compare and contrast ideas about how lunar craters form
2. Explain the process of impact crater formation
3. Discuss the use of crater counts to determine relative ages of lunar landforms

### Volcanic Versus Impact Origin of Craters

The Moon provides an important benchmark for understanding the history of our planetary system. Most solid worlds show the effects of impacts, often extending back to the era when a great deal of debris from our system’s formation process was still present. On Earth, this long history has been erased by our active geology. On the Moon, in contrast, most of the impact history is preserved. If we can understand what has happened on the Moon, we may be able to apply this knowledge to other worlds. The Moon is especially interesting because it is not just any moon, but our Moon—a nearby world that has shared the history of Earth for more than 4 billion years and preserved a record that, for Earth, has been destroyed by our active geology.
Until the middle of the twentieth century, scientists did not generally recognize that lunar craters were the result of impacts. Since impact craters are extremely rare on Earth, geologists did not expect them to be the major feature of lunar geology. They reasoned (perhaps unconsciously) that since the craters we have on Earth are volcanic, the lunar craters must have a similar origin.
One of the first geologists to propose that lunar craters were the result of impacts was Grove K. Gilbert, a scientist with the US Geological Survey in the 1890s. He pointed out that the large lunar craters—mountain-rimmed, circular features with floors generally below the level of the surrounding plains—are larger and have different shapes from known volcanic craters on Earth. Terrestrial volcanic craters are smaller and deeper and almost always occur at the tops of volcanic mountains (). The only alternative to explain the Moon’s craters was an impact origin. His careful reasoning, although not accepted at the time, laid the foundations for the modern science of lunar geology.
Gilbert concluded that the lunar craters were produced by impacts, but he didn’t understand why all of them were circular and not oval. The reason lies in the escape velocity, the minimum speed that a body must reach to permanently break away from the gravity of another body; it is also the minimum speed that a projectile approaching Earth or the Moon will hit with. Attracted by the gravity of the larger body, the incoming chunk strikes with at least escape velocity, which is 11 kilometers per second for Earth and 2.4 kilometers per second (5400 miles per hour) for the Moon. To this escape velocity is added whatever speed the projectile already had with respect to Earth or Moon, typically 10 kilometers per second or more.
At these speeds, the energy of impact produces a violent explosion that excavates a large volume of material in a symmetrical way. Photographs of bomb and shell craters on Earth confirm that explosion craters are always essentially circular. Only following World War I did scientists recognize the similarity between impact craters and explosion craters, but, sadly, Gilbert did not live to see his impact hypothesis widely accepted.

### The Cratering Process

Let’s consider how an impact at these high speeds produces a crater. When such a fast projectile strikes a planet, it penetrates two or three times its own diameter before stopping. During these few seconds, its energy of motion is transferred into a shock wave (which spreads through the target body) and into heat (which vaporizes most of the projectile and some of the surrounding target). The shock wave fractures the rock of the target, while the expanding silicate vapor generates an explosion similar to that of a nuclear bomb detonated at ground level (). The size of the excavated crater depends primarily on the speed of impact, but generally it is 10 to 15 times the diameter of the projectile.
An impact explosion of the sort described above leads to a characteristic kind of crater, as shown in . The central cavity is initially bowl-shaped (the word “crater” comes from the Greek word for “bowl”), but the rebound of the crust partially fills it in, producing a flat floor and sometimes creating a central peak. Around the rim, landslides create a series of terraces.
The rim of the crater is turned up by the force of the explosion, so it rises above both the floor and the adjacent terrain. Surrounding the rim is an ejecta blanket consisting of material thrown out by the explosion. This debris falls back to create a rough, hilly region, typically about as wide as the crater diameter. Additional, higher-speed ejecta fall at greater distances from the crater, often digging small secondary craters where they strike the surface ().
Some of these streams of ejecta can extend for hundreds or even thousands of kilometers from the crater, creating the bright crater rays that are prominent in lunar photos taken near full phase. The brightest lunar crater rays are associated with large young craters such as Kepler and Tycho.

### Using Crater Counts

If a world has had little erosion or internal activity, like the Moon during the past 3 billion years, it is possible to use the number of impact craters on its surface to estimate the age of that surface. By “age” here we mean the time since a major disturbance occurred on that surface (such as the volcanic eruptions that produced the lunar maria).
We cannot directly measure the rate at which craters are being formed on Earth and the Moon, since the average interval between large crater-forming impacts is longer than the entire span of human history. Our best-known example of such a large crater, Meteor Crater in Arizona (), is about 50,000 years old. However, the cratering rate can be estimated from the number of craters on the lunar maria or calculated from the number of potential “projectiles” (asteroids and comets) present in the solar system today. Both lines of reasoning lead to about the same estimations.
For the Moon, these calculations indicate that a crater 1 kilometer in diameter should be produced about every 200,000 years, a 10-kilometer crater every few million years, and one or two 100-kilometer craters every billion years. If the cratering rate has stayed the same, we can figure out how long it must have taken to make all the craters we see in the lunar maria. Our calculations show that it would have taken several billion years. This result is similar to the age determined for the maria from radioactive dating of returned samples—3.3 to 3.8 billion years old.
The fact that these two calculations agree suggests that astronomers’ original assumption was right: comets and asteroids in approximately their current numbers have been impacting planetary surfaces for billions of years. Calculations carried out for other planets (and their moons) indicate that they also have been subject to about the same number of interplanetary impacts during this time.
We have good reason to believe, however, that earlier than 3.8 billion years ago, the impact rates must have been a great deal higher. This becomes immediately evident when comparing the numbers of craters on the lunar highlands with those on the maria. Typically, there are 10 times more craters on the highlands than on a similar area of maria. Yet the radioactive dating of highland samples showed that they are only a little older than the maria, typically 4.2 billion years rather than 3.8 billion years. If the rate of impacts had been constant throughout the Moon’s history, the highlands would have had to be at least 10 times older. They would thus have had to form 38 billion years ago—long before the universe itself began.
In science, when an assumption leads to an implausible conclusion, we must go back and re-examine that assumption—in this case, the constant impact rate. The contradiction is resolved if the impact rate varied over time, with a much heavier bombardment earlier than 3.8 billion years ago (). This “heavy bombardment” produced most of the craters we see today in the highlands.
This idea we have been exploring—that large impacts (especially during the early history of the solar system) played a major role in shaping the worlds we see—is not unique to our study of the Moon. As you read through the other chapters about the planets, you will see further indications that a number of the present-day characteristics of our system may be due to its violent past.

### Key Concepts and Summary

A century ago, Grove Gilbert suggested that the lunar craters were caused by impacts, but the cratering process was not well understood until more recently. High-speed impacts produce explosions and excavate craters 10 to 15 times the size of the impactor with raised rims, ejecta blankets, and often central peaks. Cratering rates have been roughly constant for the past 3 billion years but earlier were much greater. Crater counts can be used to derive approximate ages for geological features on the Moon and other worlds with solid surfaces.


# Cratered Worlds

## The Origin of the Moon

### Learning Objectives

By the end of this section, you will be able to:
1. Describe the top three early hypotheses of the formation of the Moon
2. Summarize the current “giant impact” concept of how the Moon formed

### Ideas for the Origin of the Moon

It is characteristic of modern science to ask how things originated. Understanding the origin of the Moon has proven to be challenging for planetary scientists, however. Part of the difficulty is simply that we know so much about the Moon (quite the opposite of our usual problem in astronomy). As we will see, one key problem is that the Moon is both tantalizingly similar to Earth and frustratingly different.
Most of the earlier hypotheses for the Moon’s origin followed one of three general ideas:
1. The fission theory—the Moon was once part of Earth, but somehow separated from it early in their history.
2. The sister theory—the Moon formed together with (but independent of) Earth, as we believe many moons of the outer planets formed.
3. The capture theory—the Moon formed elsewhere in the solar system and was captured by Earth.
Unfortunately, there seem to be fundamental problems with each of these ideas. Perhaps the easiest hypothesis to reject is the capture theory. Its primary drawback is that no one knows of any way that early Earth could have captured such a large moon from elsewhere. One body approaching another cannot go into orbit around it without a substantial loss of energy; this is the reason that spacecraft destined to orbit other planets are equipped with retro-rockets. Furthermore, if such a capture did take place, the captured object would go into a very eccentric orbit rather than the nearly circular orbit our Moon occupies today. Finally, there are too many compositional similarities between Earth and the Moon, particularly an identical fraction of the major isotopesRemember from the  of oxygen, to justify seeking a completely independent origin.
The fission hypothesis, which states that the Moon separated from Earth, was suggested in the late nineteenth century. Modern calculations have shown that this sort of spontaneous fission or splitting is impossible. Furthermore, it is difficult to understand how a Moon made out of terrestrial material in this way could have developed the many distinctive chemical differences now known to characterize our neighbor.
Scientists were therefore left with the sister hypothesis—that the Moon formed alongside Earth—or with some modification of the fission hypothesis that can find a more acceptable way for the lunar material to have separated from Earth. But the more we learned about our Moon, the less these old ideas seem to fit the bill.

### The Giant Impact Hypothesis

In an effort to resolve these apparent contradictions, scientists developed a fourth hypothesis for the origin of the Moon, one that involves a giant impact early in Earth’s history. There is increasing evidence that large chunks of material—objects of essentially planetary mass—were orbiting in the inner solar system at the time that the terrestrial planets formed. The giant impact hypothesis envisions Earth being struck obliquely by an object approximately one-tenth Earth’s mass—a “bullet” about the size of Mars. This is very nearly the largest impact Earth could experience without being shattered.
Such an impact would disrupt much of Earth and eject a vast amount of material into space, releasing almost enough energy to break the planet apart. Computer simulations indicate that material totaling several percent of Earth’s mass could be ejected in such an impact. Most of this material would be from the stony mantles of Earth and the impacting body, not from their metal cores. This ejected rock vapor then cooled and formed a ring of material orbiting Earth. It was this ring that ultimately condensed into the Moon.
While we do not have any current way of showing that the giant impact hypothesis is the correct model of the Moon’s origin, it does offer potential solutions to most of the major problems raised by the chemistry of the Moon. First, since the Moon’s raw material is derived from the mantles of Earth and the projectile, the absence of metals is easily understood. Second, most of the volatile elements would have been lost during the high-temperature phase following the impact, explaining the lack of these materials on the Moon. Yet, by making the Moon primarily of terrestrial mantle material, it is also possible to understand similarities such as identical abundances of various oxygen isotopes.

### Key Concepts and Summary

The three standard hypotheses for the origin of the Moon were the fission hypothesis, the sister hypothesis, and the capture hypothesis. All have problems, and they have been supplanted by the giant impact hypothesis, which ascribes the origin of the Moon to the impact of a Mars-sized projectile with Earth 4.5 billion years ago. The debris from the impact made a ring around Earth which condensed and formed the Moon.


# Cratered Worlds

## Mercury

### Learning Objectives

By the end of this section, you will be able to:
1. Characterize the orbit of Mercury around the Sun
2. Describe Mercury’s structure and composition
3. Explain the relationship between Mercury’s orbit and rotation
4. Describe the topography and features of Mercury’s surface
5. Summarize our ideas about the origin and evolution of Mercury

### Mercury’s Orbit

The planet Mercury is similar to the Moon in many ways. Like the Moon, it has no atmosphere, and its surface is heavily cratered. As described later in this chapter, it also shares with the Moon the likelihood of a violent birth.
Mercury is the nearest planet to the Sun, and, in accordance with Kepler’s third law, it has the shortest period of revolution about the Sun (88 of our days) and the highest average orbital speed (48 kilometers per second). It is appropriately named for the fleet-footed messenger god of the Romans. Because Mercury remains close to the Sun, it can be difficult to pick out in the sky. As you might expect, it’s best seen when its eccentric orbit takes it as far from the Sun as possible.
The semimajor axis of Mercury’s orbit—that is, the planet’s average distance from the Sun—is 58 million kilometers, or 0.39 AU. However, because its orbit has the high eccentricity of 0.206, Mercury’s actual distance from the Sun varies from 46 million kilometers at perihelion to 70 million kilometers at aphelion (the ideas and terms that describe orbits were introduced in Orbits and Gravity).

### Composition and Structure

Mercury’s mass is one-eighteenth that of Earth, making it the smallest terrestrial planet. Mercury is the smallest planet (except for the dwarf planets), having a diameter of 4878 kilometers, less than half that of Earth. Mercury’s density is 5.4 g/cm3, much greater than the density of the Moon, indicating that the composition of those two objects differs substantially.
Mercury’s composition is one of the most interesting things about it and makes it unique among the planets. Mercury’s high density tells us that it must be composed largely of heavier materials such as metals. The most likely models for Mercury’s interior suggest a metallic iron-nickel core amounting to 60% of the total mass, with the rest of the planet made up primarily of silicates. The core has a diameter of 3500 kilometers and extends out to within 700 kilometers of the surface. We could think of Mercury as a metal ball the size of the Moon surrounded by a rocky crust 700 kilometers thick (). Unlike the Moon, Mercury does have a weak magnetic field. The existence of this field is consistent with the presence of a large metal core, and it suggests that at least part of the core must be liquid in order to generate the observed magnetic field.Recall from the

### Mercury’s Strange Rotation

Visual studies of Mercury’s indistinct surface markings were once thought to indicate that the planet kept one face to the Sun (as the Moon does to Earth). Thus, for many years, it was widely believed that Mercury’s rotation period was equal to its revolution period of 88 days, making one side perpetually hot while the other was always cold.
Radar observations of Mercury in the mid-1960s, however, showed conclusively that Mercury does not keep one side fixed toward the Sun. If a planet is turning, one side seems to be approaching Earth while the other is moving away from it. The resulting Doppler shift spreads or broadens the precise transmitted radar-wave frequency into a range of frequencies in the reflected signal (). The degree of broadening provides an exact measurement of the rotation rate of the planet.
Mercury’s period of rotation (how long it takes to turn with respect to the distant stars) is 59 days, which is just two-thirds of the planet’s period of revolution. Subsequently, astronomers found that a situation where the spin and the orbit of a planet (its year) are in a 2:3 ratio turns out to be stable. (See  for more on the effects of having such a long day on Mercury.)
Mercury, being close to the Sun, is very hot on its daylight side; but because it has no appreciable atmosphere, it gets surprisingly cold during the long nights. The temperature on the surface climbs to 700 K (430 °C) at noontime. After sunset, however, the temperature drops, reaching 100 K (–170 °C) just before dawn. (It is even colder in craters near the poles that receive no sunlight at all.) The range in temperature on Mercury is thus 600 K (or 600 °C), a greater difference than on any other planet.

### The Surface of Mercury

The first close-up look at Mercury came in 1974, when the US spacecraft Mariner 10 passed 9500 kilometers from the surface of the planet and transmitted more than 2000 photographs to Earth, revealing details with a resolution down to 150 meters. Subsequently, the planet was mapped in great detail by the MESSENGER spacecraft, which was launched in 2004 and made multiple flybys of Earth, Venus, and Mercury before settling into orbit around Mercury in 2011. It ended its life in 2015, when it was commanded to crash into the surface of the planet.
Mercury’s surface strongly resembles the Moon in appearance ( and ). It is covered with thousands of craters and larger basins up to 1300 kilometers in diameter. Some of the brighter craters are rayed, like Tycho and Copernicus on the Moon, and many have central peaks. There are also scarps (cliffs) more than a kilometer high and hundreds of kilometers long, as well as ridges and plains.
MESSENGER instruments measured the surface composition and mapped past volcanic activity. One of its most important discoveries was the verification of water ice (first detected by radar) in craters near the poles, similar to the situation on the Moon, and the unexpected discovery of organic (carbon-rich) compounds mixed with the water ice.
Most of the mercurian features have been named in honor of artists, writers, composers, and other contributors to the arts and humanities, in contrast with the scientists commemorated on the Moon. Among the named craters are Bach, Shakespeare, Tolstoy, Van Gogh, and Scott Joplin.
There is no evidence of plate tectonics on Mercury. However, the planet’s distinctive long scarps can sometimes be seen cutting across craters; this means the scarps must have formed later than the craters (). These long, curved cliffs appear to have their origin in the slight compression of Mercury’s crust. Apparently, at some point in its history, the planet shrank, wrinkling the crust, and it must have done so after most of the craters on its surface had already formed.
If the standard cratering chronology applies to Mercury, this shrinkage must have taken place during the last 4 billion years and not during the solar system’s early period of heavy bombardment.

### The Origin of Mercury

The problem with understanding how Mercury formed is the reverse of the problem posed by the composition of the Moon. We have seen that, unlike the Moon, Mercury is composed mostly of metal. However, astronomers think that Mercury should have formed with roughly the same ratio of metal to silicate as that found on Earth or Venus. How did it lose so much of its rocky material?
The most probable explanation for Mercury’s silicate loss may be similar to the explanation for the Moon’s lack of a metal core. Mercury is likely to have experienced several giant impacts very early in its youth, and one or more of these may have torn away a fraction of its mantle and crust, leaving a body dominated by its iron core. A recent alternative explanation suggests that, early on, heat from the young Sun evaporated much of the lighter, more volatile, silicates in the material that formed Mercury, leaving the planet with a majority of metals.
Today, astronomers recognize that the early solar system was a chaotic place, with the final stages of planet formation characterized by impacts of great violence. Some objects of planetary mass have been destroyed, whereas others could have fragmented and then re-formed, perhaps more than once. Both the Moon and Mercury, with their strange compositions, bear testimony to the catastrophes that must have characterized the solar system during its youth.

### Key Concepts and Summary

Mercury is the nearest planet to the Sun and the fastest moving. Mercury is similar to the Moon in having a heavily cratered surface and no atmosphere, but it differs in having a very large metal core. Early in its evolution, it apparently lost part of its silicate mantle, probably due to one or more giant impacts. Long scarps on its surface testify to a global compression of Mercury’s crust during the past 4 billion years.

### For Further Exploration

### Articles

### The Moon

Bakich, Michael. “Asia’s New Assault on the Moon.” Astronomy (August 2009): 50. The Japanese Selene and Chinese Chang’e 1 missions.
Beatty, J. “NASA Slams the Moon.” Sky & Telescope (February 2010): 28. The impact of the LCROSS mission on the Moon and what we learned from it.
Bell, T. “Warning: Dust Ahead.” Astronomy (March 2006): 46. What we know about lunar dust and the problems it can cause.
Dorminey, B. “Secrets beneath the Moon’s Surface.” Astronomy (March 2011): 24. A nice timeline of the Moon’s evolution and the story of how we are finding out more about its internal structure.
Jayawardhana, R. “Deconstructing the Moon.” Astronomy (September 1998): 40. An update on the giant impact hypothesis for forming the Moon.
Register, B. “The Fate of the Moon Rocks.” Astronomy (December 1985): 15. What was done with the rocks the astronauts brought back from the Moon.
Schmitt, H. “Exploring Taurus–Littrow: Apollo 17.” National Geographic (September 1973). First-person account given by the only scientist to walk on the Moon.
Schmitt, H. “From the Moon to Mars.” Scientific American (July 2009): 36. The only scientist to walk on the Moon reflects on the science from Apollo and future missions to Mars.
Schultz, P. “New Clues to the Moon’s Distant Past.” Astronomy (December 2011): 34. Summary of results and ideas from the LCROSS and LRO missions.
Shirao, M. “Kayuga’s High Def Highlights.” Sky & Telescope (February 2010): 20. Results from the Japanese mission to the Moon, with high definition TV cameras.
Wadhwa, M. “What Are We Learning from the Moon Rocks?” Astronomy (June 2013): 54. Very nice discussion of how the rocks tell us about Moon’s composition, age, and origin.
Wood, Charles. “The Moon’s Far Side: Nearly a New World.” Sky & Telescope (January 2007): 48. This article compares what we know about the two sides and why they are different.
Zimmerman, R. “How Much Water is on the Moon?” Astronomy (January 2014): 50. Results from the LRO’s instruments and good overview of issue.

### Mercury

Beatty, J. “Mercury Gets a Second Look.” Sky & Telescope (March 2009): 26. The October 2008 MESSENGER mission flyby.
Beatty, J. “Reunion with Mercury.” Sky & Telescope (May 2008): 24. The January 2008 MESSENGER encounter with Mercury.
“Mercury: Meet the Planet Nearest the Sun.” Sky & Telescope (March 2014): 39. Four-page pictorial introduction, including the new MESSENGER probe full map of the planet provided.
Oberg, J. “Torrid Mercury’s Icy Poles.” Astronomy (December 2013): 30. A nice overview of results from MESSENGER mission, including the ice in polar craters.
Sheehan, W., and Dobbins, T. “Mesmerized by Mercury.” Sky & Telescope (June 2000): 109. History of Mercury observations and how amateur astronomers can contribute.
Talcott, R. “Surprises from MESSENGER’s Historic Mercury Fly-by.” Astronomy (March 2009): 28.
Talcott, R. “Mercury Reveals its Hidden Side.” Astronomy (May 2008): 26. Results and image from the MESSENGER mission flyby of January 2008.

### Websites

### The Moon

Apollo Lunar Surface Journal: http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/History/alsj/. Information, interviews, maps, photos, video and audio clips, and much more on each of the Apollo landing missions.
Lunar & Planetary Institute: http://www.lpi.usra.edu/lunar/missions/. Lunar Science and Exploration web pages.
Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Mission Page: http://lro.gsfc.nasa.gov/.
NASA’s Guide to Moon Missions and Information: http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/planetary/planets/moonpage.html.
Origin of the Moon: http://www.psi.edu/projects/moon/moon.html. By William Hartmann, who, with a colleague, first suggested the giant impact hypothesis for how the Moon formed, in 1975.
Sky & Telescope magazine’s observing guides and articles about the Moon: http://www.skyandtelescope.com/observing/celestial-objects-to-watch/moon/.
To the Moon: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/tothemoon/. PBS program on the Apollo landings.

### Mercury

Mercury Unveiled by G. Jeffrey Taylor (summarizing the Mariner 10 Mission): http://www.psrd.hawaii.edu/Jan97/MercuryUnveiled.html.
MESSENGER Mission Website: http://messenger.jhuapl.edu/.
NASA Planetary Data Center Mercury Page: http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/planetary/planets/mercurypage.html.
Views of the Solar System Mercury Page: http://solarviews.com/eng/mercury.htm.

### Collaborative Group Activities

1. We mentioned that no nation on Earth now has the capability to send a human being to the Moon, even though the United States once sent 12 astronauts to land there. What does your group think about this? Should we continue the exploration of space with human beings? Should we put habitats on the Moon? Should we go to Mars? Does humanity have a “destiny in space?” Whatever your answer to these questions, make a list of the arguments and facts that support your position.
2. When they hear about the giant impact hypothesis for the origin of the Moon, many students are intrigued and wonder why we can’t cite more evidence for it. In your group, make a list of reasons we cannot find any traces on Earth of the great impact that formed the Moon?
3. We discussed that the ice (mixed into the soil) that is found on the Moon was most likely delivered by comets. Have your group make a list of all the reasons the Moon would not have any ice of its own left over from its early days.
4. Can your group make a list of all the things that would be different if Earth had no Moon? Don’t restrict your answer to astronomy and geology. Think about our calendars and moonlit romantic strolls, for example. (You may want to review Earth, Moon, and Sky.)
5. If, one day, humanity decides to establish a colony on the Moon, where should we put it? Make a list of the advantages and disadvantages of locating such a human habitat on the near side, the far side, or at the poles. What site would be best for doing visible-light and radio astronomy from observatories on the Moon?
6. A member of the class (but luckily, not a member of your group) suggests that he has always dreamed of building a vacation home on the planet Mercury. Can your group make a list of all reasons such a house would be hard to build and keep in good repair?
7. As you’ve read in this chapter, craters on the Moon are (mostly) named after scientists. (See the official list at: http://planetarynames.wr.usgs.gov/SearchResults?target=MOON&featureType=Crater,%20craters). The craters on Mercury, on the other hand, are named for writers, artists, composers, and others in the humanities. See the official list at: http://planetarynames.wr.usgs.gov/SearchResults?target=MERCURY&featureType=Crater,%20craters). Living persons are not eligible. Can each person in your group think of a scientist or someone in the arts whom they especially respect? Now check to see if they are listed. Are there scientists or people in the arts who should have their names on the Moon or Mercury and do not?
8. Imagine that a distant relative, hearing you are taking an astronomy course, calls you up and tells you that NASA faked the Moon landings. His most significant argument is that all the photos of the Moon show black skies, but none of them have any stars showing. This proves that the photos were taken against a black backdrop in a studio and not on the Moon. Based on your reading in this chapter, what arguments can your group come up with to rebut this idea?

### Review Questions

### Thought Questions

### Figuring for Yourself


# Earthlike Planets: Venus and Mars

## Thinking Ahead

The Moon and Mercury are geologically dead. In contrast, the larger terrestrial planets—Earth, Venus, and Mars—are more active and interesting worlds. We have already discussed Earth, and we now turn to Venus and Mars. These are the nearest planets and the most accessible to spacecraft. Not surprisingly, the greatest effort in planetary exploration has been devoted to these fascinating worlds. In the chapter, we discuss some of the results of more than four decades of scientific exploration of Mars and Venus. Mars is exceptionally interesting, with evidence that points to habitable conditions in the past. Even today, we are discovering things about Mars that make it the most likely place where humans might set up a habitat in the future. However, our robot explorers have clearly shown that neither Venus nor Mars has conditions similar to Earth. How did it happen that these three neighboring terrestrial planets have diverged so dramatically in their evolution?


# Earthlike Planets: Venus and Mars

## The Nearest Planets: An Overview

### Learning Objectives

By the end of this section, you will be able to:
1. Explain why it’s difficult to learn about Venus from Earth-based observation alone
2. Describe the history of our interest in Mars before the Space Age
3. Compare the basic physical properties of Earth, Mars, and Venus, including their orbits
As you might expect from close neighbors, Mars and Venus are among the brightest objects in the night sky. The average distance of Mars from the Sun is 227 million kilometers (1.52 AU), or about half again as far from the Sun as Earth. Venus’ orbit is very nearly circular, at a distance of 108 million kilometers (0.72 AU) from the Sun. Like Mercury, Venus sometimes appears as an “evening star” and sometimes as a “morning star.” Venus approaches Earth more closely than does any other planet: at its nearest, it is only 40 million kilometers from us. The closest Mars ever gets to Earth is about 56 million kilometers.

### Appearance

Venus appears very bright, and even a small telescope reveals that it goes through phases like the Moon. Galileo discovered that Venus displays a full range of phases, and he used this as an argument to show that Venus must circle the Sun and not Earth. The planet’s actual surface is not visible because it is shrouded by dense clouds that reflect about 70% of the sunlight that falls on them, frustrating efforts to study the underlying surface, even with cameras in orbit around the planet ().
In contrast, Mars is more tantalizing as seen through a telescope (). The planet is distinctly red, due (as we now know) to the presence of iron oxides in its soil. This color may account for its association with war (and blood) in the legends of early cultures. The best resolution obtainable from telescopes on the ground is about 100 kilometers, or about the same as what we can see on the Moon with the unaided eye. At this resolution, no hint of topographic structure can be detected: no mountains, no valleys, not even impact craters. On the other hand, bright polar ice caps can be seen easily, together with dusky surface markings that sometimes change in outline and intensity from season to season.
For a few decades around the turn of the twentieth century, some astronomers believed that they saw evidence of an intelligent civilization on Mars. The controversy began in 1877, when Italian astronomer Giovanni Schiaparelli (1835–1910) announced that he could see long, faint, straight lines on Mars that he called canale, or channels. In English-speaking countries, the term was mistakenly translated as “canals,” implying an artificial origin.
Even before Schiaparelli’s observations, astronomers had watched the bright polar caps change size with the seasons and had seen variations in the dark surface features. With a little imagination, it was not difficult to picture the canals as long fields of crops bordering irrigation ditches that brought water from the melting polar ice to the parched deserts of the red planet. (They assumed the polar caps were composed of water ice, which isn’t exactly true, as we will see shortly.)
Until his death in 1916, the most effective proponent of intelligent life on Mars was Percival Lowell, a self-made American astronomer and member of the wealthy Lowell family of Boston (see the feature box on Percival Lowell: Dreaming of an Inhabited Mars). A skilled author and speaker, Lowell made what seemed to the public to be a convincing case for intelligent Martians, who had constructed the huge canals to preserve their civilization in the face of a deteriorating climate ().
The argument for a race of intelligent Martians, however, hinged on the reality of the canals, a matter that remained in serious dispute among astronomers. The canal markings were always difficult to study, glimpsed only occasionally because atmospheric conditions caused the tiny image of Mars to shimmer in the telescope. Lowell saw canals everywhere (even a few on Venus), but many other observers could not see them at all and remained unconvinced of their existence. When telescopes larger than Lowell’s failed to confirm the presence of canals, the skeptics felt vindicated. Now it is generally accepted that the straight lines were an optical illusion, the result of the human mind’s tendency to see order in random features that are glimpsed dimly at the limits of the eye’s resolution. When we see small, dim dots of surface markings, our minds tend to connect those dots into straight lines.

### Rotation of the Planets

Astronomers have determined the rotation period of Mars with great accuracy by watching the motion of permanent surface markings; its sidereal day is 24 hours 37 minutes 23 seconds, just a little longer than the rotation period of Earth. This high precision is not obtained by watching Mars for a single rotation, but by noting how many turns it makes over a long period of time. Good observations of Mars date back more than 200 years, a period during which tens of thousands of martian days have passed. As a result, the rotation period can be calculated to within a few hundredths of a second.
The rotational axis of Mars has a tilt of about 25°, similar to the tilt of Earth’s axis. Thus, Mars experiences seasons very much like those on Earth. Because of the longer martian year (almost two Earth years), however, each season there lasts about six of our months.
The situation with Venus is different. Since no surface detail can be seen through Venus’ clouds, its rotation period can be found only by bouncing radar signals off the planet (as explained for Mercury in the Cratered Worlds chapter). The first radar observations of Venus’ rotation were made in the early 1960s. Later, topographical surface features were identified on the planet that showed up in the reflected radar signals. The rotation period of Venus, precisely determined from the motion of such “radar features” across its disk, is 243 days. Even more surprising than how long Venus takes to rotate is the fact that it spins in a backward or retrograde direction (east to west).
Stop for a moment and think about how odd this slow rotation makes the calendar on Venus. The planet takes 225 Earth days to orbit the Sun and 243 Earth days to spin on its axis. So the day on Venus (as defined by its spinning once) is longer than the year! As a result, the time the Sun takes to return to the same place in Venus’ sky—another way we might define the meaning of a day—turns out to be 117 Earth days. (If you say “See you tomorrow” on Venus, you’ll have a long time to wait.) Although we do not know the reason for Venus’ slow backward rotation, we can guess that it may have suffered one or more extremely powerful collisions during the formation process of the solar system.

### Basic Properties of Venus and Mars

Before discussing each planet individually, let us compare some of their basic properties with each other and with Earth (). Venus is in many ways Earth’s twin, with a mass 0.82 times the mass of Earth and an almost identical density. The average amount of geological activity has been also relatively high, almost as high as on Earth. On the other hand, with a surface pressure nearly 100 times greater than ours, Venus’ atmosphere is not at all like that of Earth. The surface of Venus is also remarkably hot, with a temperature of 730 K (over 850 °F), hotter than the self-cleaning cycle of your oven. One of the major challenges presented by Venus is to understand why the atmosphere and surface environment of this twin have diverged so sharply from those of our own planet.
Mars, by contrast, is rather small, with a mass only 0.11 times the mass of Earth. It is larger than either the Moon or Mercury, however, and, unlike them, it retains a thin atmosphere. Mars is also large enough to have supported considerable geological activity in the distant past. But the most fascinating thing about Mars is that long ago it probably had a thick atmosphere and seas of liquid water—the conditions we associate with development of life. There is even a chance that some form of life persists today in protected environments below the martian surface.

### Key Concepts and Summary

Venus, the nearest planet, is a great disappointment through the telescope because of its impenetrable cloud cover. Mars is more tantalizing, with dark markings and polar caps. Early in the twentieth century, it was widely believed that the “canals” of Mars indicated intelligent life there. Mars has only 11% the mass of Earth, but Venus is nearly our twin in size and mass. Mars rotates in 24 hours and has seasons like Earth; Venus has a retrograde rotation period of 243 days. Both planets have been extensively explored by spacecraft.


# Earthlike Planets: Venus and Mars

## The Geology of Venus

### Learning Objectives

By the end of this section, you will be able to:
1. Describe the general features of the surface of Venus
2. Explain what the study of craters on Venus tells us about the age of its surface
3. Compare tectonic activity and volcanoes on Venus with those of Earth
4. Explain why the surface of Venus is inhospitable to human life
Since Venus has about the same size and composition as Earth, we might expect its geology to be similar. This is partly true, but Venus does not exhibit the same kind of plate tectonics as Earth, and we will see that its lack of erosion results in a very different surface appearance.

### Spacecraft Exploration of Venus

Nearly 50 spacecraft have been launched to Venus, but only about half were successful. Although the 1962 US Mariner 2 flyby was the first, the Soviet Union launched most of the subsequent missions to Venus. In 1970, Venera 7 became the first probe to land and broadcast data from the surface of Venus. It operated for 23 minutes before succumbing to the high surface temperature. Additional Venera probes and landers followed, photographing the surface and analyzing the atmosphere and soil.
To understand the geology of Venus, however, we needed to make a global study of its surface, a task made very difficult by the perpetual cloud layers surrounding the planet. The problem resembles the challenge facing air traffic controllers at an airport, when the weather is so cloudy or smoggy that they can’t locate the incoming planes visually. The solution is similar in both cases: use a radar instrument to probe through the obscuring layer.
The first global radar map was made by the US Pioneer Venus orbiter in the late 1970s, followed by better maps from the twin Soviet Venera 15 and 16 radar orbiters in the early 1980s. However, most of our information on the geology of Venus is derived from the US Magellan spacecraft, which mapped Venus with a powerful imaging radar. Magellan produced images with a resolution of 100 meters, much better than that of previous missions, yielding our first detailed look at the surface of our sister planet (). (The Magellan spacecraft returned more data to Earth than all previous planetary missions combined; each 100 minutes of data transmission from the spacecraft provided enough information, if translated into characters, to fill two 30-volume encyclopedias.)
Consider for a moment how good Magellan’s resolution of 100 meters really is. It means the radar images from Venus can show anything on the surface larger than a football field. Suddenly, a whole host of topographic features on Venus became accessible to our view. As you look at the radar images throughout this chapter, bear in mind that these are constructed from radar reflections, not from visible-light photographs. For example, bright features on these radar images are an indication of rough terrain, whereas darker regions are smoother.

### Probing Through the Clouds of Venus

The radar maps of Venus reveal a planet that looks much the way Earth might look if our planet’s surface were not constantly being changed by erosion and deposition of sediment. Because there is no water or ice on Venus and the surface wind speeds are low, almost nothing obscures or erases the complex geological features produced by the movements of Venus’ crust, by volcanic eruptions, and by impact craters. Having finally penetrated below the clouds of Venus, we find its surface to be naked, revealing the history of hundreds of millions of years of geological activity.
About 75% of the surface of Venus consists of lowland lava plains. Superficially, these plains resemble the basaltic ocean basins of Earth, but they were not produced in quite the same way. There is no evidence of subduction zones on Venus, indicating that, unlike Earth, this planet never experienced plate tectonics. Although convection (the rising of hot materials) in its mantle generated great stresses in the crust of Venus, they did not start large continental plates moving. The formation of the lava plains of Venus more nearly resembles that of the lunar maria. Both were the result of widespread lava eruptions without the crustal spreading associated with plate tectonics.
Rising above the lowland lava plains are two full-scale continents of mountainous terrain. The largest continent on Venus, called Aphrodite, is about the size of Africa (you can see it stand out in ). Aphrodite stretches along the equator for about one-third of the way around the planet. Next in size is the northern highland region Ishtar, which is about the size of Australia. Ishtar contains the highest region on the planet, the Maxwell Mountains, which rise 11 kilometers above the surrounding lowlands. (The Maxwell Mountains are the only feature on Venus named after a man. They commemorate James Clerk Maxwell, whose theory of electromagnetism led to the invention of radar. All other features are named for women, either from history or mythology.)

### Craters and the Age of the Venus Surface

One of the first questions astronomers addressed with the high-resolution Magellan images was the age of the surface of Venus. Remember that the age of a planetary surface is rarely the age of the world it is on. A young age merely implies an active geology in that location. Such ages can be derived from counting impact craters.  is an example of what these craters look like on the Venus radar images. The more densely cratered the surface, the greater its age. The largest crater on Venus (called Mead) is 275 kilometers in diameter, slightly larger than the largest known terrestrial crater (Chicxulub), but much smaller than the lunar impact basins.
You might think that the thick atmosphere of Venus would protect the surface from impacts, burning up the projectiles long before they could reach the surface. But this is the case for only smaller projectiles. Crater statistics show very few craters less than 10 kilometers in diameter, indicating that projectiles smaller than about 1 kilometer (the size that typically produces a 10-kilometer crater) were stopped by the atmosphere. Those craters with diameters from 10 to 30 kilometers are frequently distorted or multiple, apparently because the incoming projectile broke apart in the atmosphere before it could strike the ground as shown in the Stein crater in . If we limit ourselves to impacts that produce craters with diameters of 30 kilometers or larger, however, then crater counts are as useful on Venus for measuring surface age as they are on airless bodies such as the Moon.
The large craters in the venusian plains indicate an average surface age that is only between 300 and 600 million years. These results indicate that Venus is indeed a planet with persistent geological activity, intermediate between that of Earth’s ocean basins (which are younger and more active) and that of its continents (which are older and less active).
Almost all of the large craters on Venus look fresh, with little degradation or filling in by either lava or windblown dust. This is one way we know that the rates of erosion or sediment deposition are very low. We have the impression that relatively little has happened since the venusian plains were last resurfaced by large-scale volcanic activity. Apparently Venus experienced some sort of planet-wide volcanic convulsion between 300 and 600 million years ago, a mysterious event that is unlike anything in terrestrial history.

### Volcanoes on Venus

Like Earth, Venus is a planet that has experienced widespread volcanism. In the lowland plains, volcanic eruptions are the principal way the surface is renewed, with large flows of highly fluid lava destroying old craters and generating a fresh surface. In addition, numerous younger volcanic mountains and other structures are associated with surface hot spots—places where convection in the planet’s mantle transports the interior heat to the surface.
The largest individual volcano on Venus, called Sif Mons, is about 500 kilometers across and 3 kilometers high—broader but lower than the Hawaiian volcano Mauna Loa. At its top is a volcanic crater, or caldera, about 40 kilometers across, and its slopes show individual lava flows up to 500 kilometers long. Thousands of smaller volcanoes dot the surface, down to the limit of visibility of the Magellan images, which correspond to cones or domes about the size of a shopping mall parking lot. Most of these seem similar to terrestrial volcanoes. Other volcanoes have unusual shapes, such as the “pancake domes” illustrated in .
All of the volcanism is the result of eruption of lava onto the surface of the planet. But the hot lava rising from the interior of a planet does not always make it to the surface. On both Earth and Venus, this upwelling lava can collect to produce bulges in the crust. Many of the granite mountain ranges on Earth, such as the Sierra Nevada in California, involve such subsurface volcanism. These bulges are common on Venus, where they produce large circular or oval features called coronae (singular: corona) ().

### Tectonic Activity

Convection currents of molten material in the mantle of Venus push and stretch the crust. Such forces are called tectonic, and the geological features that result from these forces are called tectonic features. On Venus’ lowland plains, tectonic forces have broken the lava surface to create remarkable patterns of ridges and cracks (). In a few places, the crust has even torn apart to generate rift valleys. The circular features associated with coronae are tectonic ridges and cracks, and most of the mountains of Venus also owe their existence to tectonic forces.
The Ishtar continent, which has the highest elevations on Venus, is the most dramatic product of these tectonic forces. Ishtar and its tall Maxwell Mountains resemble the Tibetan Plateau and Himalayan Mountains on Earth. Both are the product of compression of the crust, and both are maintained by the continuing forces of mantle convection.

### On Venus’ Surface

The successful Venera landers of the 1970s found themselves on an extraordinarily inhospitable planet, with a surface pressure of 90 bars and a temperature hot enough to melt lead and zinc. Despite these unpleasant conditions, the spacecraft were able to photograph their surroundings and collect surface samples for chemical analysis before their instruments gave out. The diffuse sunlight striking the surface was tinted red by the clouds, and the illumination level was equivalent to a heavy overcast on Earth.
The probes found that the rock in the landing areas is igneous, primarily basalts. Examples of the Venera photographs are shown in . Each picture shows a flat, desolate landscape with a variety of rocks, some of which may be ejecta from impacts. Other areas show flat, layered lava flows. There have been no further landings on Venus since the 1970s. However, NASA has plans for a radar orbiter with much higher resolution than Magellan, that will focus on the complex structures in the Aphrodite region. Some geologists think this area shows evidence of geologic plates, with past activity analogous to the plate tectonics on Earth.

### Key Concepts and Summary

Venus has been mapped by radar, especially with the Magellan spacecraft. Its crust consists of 75% lowland lava plains, numerous volcanic features, and many large coronae, which are the expression of subsurface volcanism. The planet has been modified by widespread tectonics driven by mantle convection, forming complex patterns of ridges and cracks and building high continental regions such as Ishtar. The surface is extraordinarily inhospitable, with pressure of 90 bars and temperature of 730 K, but several Russian Venera landers investigated it successfully.


# Earthlike Planets: Venus and Mars

## The Massive Atmosphere of Venus

### Learning Objectives

By the end of this section, you will be able to:
1. Describe the general composition and structure of the atmosphere on Venus
2. Explain how the greenhouse effect has led to high temperatures on Venus
The thick atmosphere of Venus produces the high surface temperature and shrouds the surface in a perpetual red twilight. Sunlight does not penetrate directly through the heavy clouds, but the surface is fairly well lit by diffuse light (about the same as the light on Earth under a heavy overcast). The weather at the bottom of this deep atmosphere remains perpetually hot and dry, with calm winds. Because of the heavy blanket of clouds and atmosphere, one spot on the surface of Venus is similar to any other as far as weather is concerned.

### Composition and Structure of the Atmosphere

The most abundant gas on Venus is carbon dioxide (CO2), which accounts for 96% of the atmosphere. The second most common gas is nitrogen. The predominance of carbon dioxide over nitrogen is not surprising when you recall that Earth’s atmosphere would also be mostly carbon dioxide if this gas were not locked up in marine sediments (see the discussion of Earth’s atmosphere in Earth as a Planet).
 compares the compositions of the atmospheres of Venus, Mars, and Earth. Expressed in this way, as percentages, the proportions of the major gases are very similar for Venus and Mars, but in total quantity, their atmospheres are dramatically different. With its surface pressure of 90 bars, the venusian atmosphere is more than 10,000 times more massive than its martian counterpart. Overall, the atmosphere of Venus is very dry; the absence of water is one of the important ways that Venus differs from Earth.
The atmosphere of Venus has a huge troposphere (region of convection) that extends up to at least 50 kilometers above the surface (). Within the troposphere, the gas is heated from below and circulates slowly, rising near the equator and descending over the poles. Being at the base of the atmosphere of Venus is something like being a kilometer or more below the ocean surface on Earth. There, the mass of water evens out temperature variations and results in a uniform environment—the same effect the thick atmosphere has on Venus.
In the upper troposphere, between 30 and 60 kilometers above the surface, a thick cloud layer is composed primarily of sulfuric acid droplets. Sulfuric acid (H2SO4) is formed from the chemical combination of sulfur dioxide (SO2) and water (H2O). In the atmosphere of Earth, sulfur dioxide is one of the primary gases emitted by volcanoes, but it is quickly diluted and washed out by rainfall. In the dry atmosphere of Venus, this unpleasant substance is apparently stable. Below 30 kilometers, the Venus atmosphere is clear of clouds.

### Surface Temperature on Venus

The high surface temperature of Venus was discovered by radio astronomers in the late 1950s and confirmed by the Mariner and Venera probes. How can our neighbor planet be so hot? Although Venus is somewhat closer to the Sun than is Earth, its surface is hundreds of degrees hotter than you would expect from the extra sunlight it receives. Scientists wondered what could be heating the surface of Venus to a temperature above 700 K. The answer turned out to be the greenhouse effect.
The greenhouse effect works on Venus just as it does on Earth, but since Venus has so much more CO2—almost a million times more—the effect is much stronger. The thick CO2 acts as a blanket, making it very difficult for the infrared (heat) radiation from the ground to get back into space. As a result, the surface heats up. The energy balance is only restored when the planet is radiating as much energy as it receives from the Sun, but this can happen only when the temperature of the lower atmosphere is very high. One way of thinking of greenhouse heating is that it must raise the surface temperature of Venus until this energy balance is achieved.
Has Venus always had such a massive atmosphere and high surface temperature, or might it have evolved to such conditions from a climate that was once more nearly earthlike? The answer to this question is of particular interest to us as we look at the increasing levels of CO2 in Earth’s atmosphere. As the greenhouse effect becomes stronger on Earth, are we in any danger of transforming our own planet into a hellish place like Venus?
Let us try to reconstruct the possible evolution of Venus from an earthlike beginning to its present state. Venus may once have had a climate similar to that of Earth, with moderate temperatures, water oceans, and much of its CO2 dissolved in the ocean or chemically combined with the surface rocks. Then we allow for modest additional heating—by gradual increase in the energy output of the Sun, for example. When we calculate how Venus’ atmosphere would respond to such effects, it turns out that even a small amount of extra heat can lead to increased evaporation of water from the oceans and the release of gas from surface rocks.
This in turn means a further increase in the atmospheric CO2 and H2O, gases that would amplify the greenhouse effect in Venus’ atmosphere. That would lead to still more heat near Venus’ surface and the release of further CO2 and H2O. Unless some other processes intervene, the temperature thus continues to rise. Such a situation is called the runaway greenhouse effect.
We want to emphasize that the runaway greenhouse effect is not just a large greenhouse effect; it is an evolutionary process. The atmosphere evolves from having a small greenhouse effect, such as on Earth, to a situation where greenhouse warming is a major factor, as we see today on Venus. Once the large greenhouse conditions develop, the planet establishes a new, much hotter equilibrium near its surface.
Reversing the situation is difficult because of the role water plays. On Earth, most of the CO2 is either chemically bound in the rocks of our crust or dissolved by the water in our oceans. As Venus got hotter and hotter, its oceans evaporated, eliminating that safety valve. But the water vapor in the planet’s atmosphere will not last forever in the presence of ultraviolet light from the Sun. The light element hydrogen can escape from the atmosphere, leaving the oxygen behind to combine chemically with surface rock. The loss of water is therefore an irreversible process: once the water is gone, it cannot be restored. There is evidence that this is just what happened to the water once present on Venus.
We don’t know if the same runaway greenhouse effect could one day happen on Earth. Although we are uncertain about the point at which a stable greenhouse effect breaks down and turns into a runaway greenhouse effect, Venus stands as clear testament to the fact that a planet cannot continue heating indefinitely without a major change in its oceans and atmosphere. It is a conclusion that we and our descendants will surely want to pay close attention to.

### Key Concepts and Summary

The atmosphere of Venus is 96% CO2. Thick clouds at altitudes of 30 to 60 kilometers are made of sulfuric acid, and a CO2 greenhouse effect maintains the high surface temperature. Venus presumably reached its current state from more earthlike initial conditions as a result of a runaway greenhouse effect, which included the loss of large quantities of water.