Howdy, Stranger!
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
Quick Links
For the Earth formation, theometric types
Pyrich
Member Posts: 1,040
Something thats always irked me, but somthing i have no real knowledge in.
Why is our planet "hot". All the other solid planets are cold to the core from what i know, venus idk tbh.... but i think she is.
From my limited understanding when a cataclysmic event such as a massive sized object in space obliterates another and both turns into dust, they eventual reform and retain some of the energy released from impact. As is the theory of the earth and our twin planet/satillete
I guess what im getting at is a time line. If this is the explaination of why we have "magma" tectonics and the whole nine yards, what is the timeline of such events?
Again, night off work, soooooo.... drinking and probabley not going to respond tonight, but I will be back.
Comments
Our planet is hot mostly because of the CO2 in the air.
That is my contribution to this thread. Good night.
Gotta be to support a wide range of life,space is just cold and dead.I have always wondered why they dont tap the magna for power.Drill down the to center of the earth make some steam,gets some power.Seems simple nuff.
Trade in material assumptions for spiritual facts and make permanent progress.
Compared to Mercury and Venus we are cold. Venus has enough pressure and heat that it's "rocky" surface is actually more gooey than solid. Mercury is hot because of just how close it is to the sun.
But if you mean geological activity it is because of their size. Mercury is quite tiny so its core cooled extremely quickly and Mars is about 1/4th the size of us, resulting in it cooling quicker than us and allowing its geological activity to stop. Basically Venus and Earth are the same size and are cooling at the same rate, we'll eventually become Mars when our core stops churning (literally).
There are several factors involved with how quickly a planet cools as well, core size, crust size, mantel size, etc. They all play a factor but generally speaking the smaller it is the quicker it cools.
Men fear thought as they fear nothing else on earth -- more than ruin -- more even than death.... Thought is subversive and revolutionary, destructive and terrible, thought is merciless to privilege, established institutions, and comfortable habit. Thought looks into the pit of hell and is not afraid. Thought is great and swift and free, the light of the world, and the chief glory of man. -- Bertrand Russell
it is not smashed to dust, you have a proto planet has a good chuck of mass and therefore a gravity well. Other orbital bodies are attracted to it (and it to them) and collide turning kinetic energy into thermal energy. When these collisions happen a cataclysmic obliteration into small particles is unlikely as you would need very special circumstances for that to happen, equivalent energies, direct collision etc.
What is most likely is that you would have a large chunks of hot mass with some smaller materials. As the large chunk keeps growing the less likely it will be smashed to dust. so it will keep accruing heat and mass from impacts.
then there is the facts that in space you can only loose heat by radiation as a black body, and the heavier (higher heat capacity) elements move inward leaving the lighter and poor thermally conducting elements to the surface leads to a very slow cooling.