Other than Earth, what's your favorite planet and why?
The definition of 'planet' may seem obvious: it is not. I stick to this definition:
A planet is an astronomical body orbiting a star or stellar remnant that
There seems to be 8 planets in our Solar system. We know what they look like, we have gathered many informations about them.
There are about 3,564 extrasolar planets (exoplanets). We just assume they are planets. We don't know what they look like, we don't know much about them yet.
There are massively more planets to identify in the Universe. There would be about 2,000 billions galaxies in the
Observable Universe, not to mention the whole Universe.
- My favorite clearly identified planet = a planet in our Solar system, other than the Earth:
Mercury: it looks sterile with no atmosphere. Boring.
Venus: so hostile. We can directly see anything through its atmosphere. Scortching acid rains.
Mars: very cold but it has an atmosphere, many interesting things to observe on its surface and there might be life on it or fossiles.
Jupiter: gaseous giant, the biggest - so what?
Saturn: gaseous giant, the second, magnifiscent rings but... I miss observing a solid surface.
Uranus: gaseous, titlted. Just gas to observe.
Neptune: same but I like its color.
-> Mars!
- My favorite identified exoplanet:
None comes to mind, therefore there is none I prefer.
- My favorite hypothetical exoplanet:
A planet even more wonderful than the Earth, not too far, so that we could observe many features of it (of the past).
What is the greatest tree you can imagine?