The atmosphere is big and heavy. Small pressure changes on order 1% means hurricane. 50% of an atmosphere pushing on something is a lot.
Note, this is all Earth’s atmosphere.
Titan’s atmosphere is energy-denser than ours at 1.5 atm. Titan is Saturn’s largest moon.
Venus has 96 atm. Absolutely crushing and hard to visit at all.
Mars varies from like 0.3-0.6% seasonally as significant portions of its CO2 atmosphere deposit onto the poles as dry ice glaciers in a runaway greenhouse style. CO2 snows out, temps drop, more snows. Keeps going till the sun comes back. Sunlight sublimates the ice back into the atmosphere in a similar runaway fashion. Like a deep breath in and out with the seasons. The weight of all that ice falling and leaving keeps that red lump beating every year. Don’t believe those who say Mars is dead. We don’t know yet. Don’t count out anything with a breath and a beat. What is life on a planetary scale, anyhow?
The gas giants have atmospheric pressures so high it kind of stops making sense to use these as comparisons, and instead we have to look to geology for analogues as deep within the earth we also approach these energy densities.
The atmosphere is big and heavy. Small pressure changes on order 1% means hurricane. 50% of an atmosphere pushing on something is a lot.
Note, this is all Earth’s atmosphere.
Titan’s atmosphere is energy-denser than ours at 1.5 atm. Titan is Saturn’s largest moon.
Venus has 96 atm. Absolutely crushing and hard to visit at all.
Mars varies from like 0.3-0.6% seasonally as significant portions of its CO2 atmosphere deposit onto the poles as dry ice glaciers in a runaway greenhouse style. CO2 snows out, temps drop, more snows. Keeps going till the sun comes back. Sunlight sublimates the ice back into the atmosphere in a similar runaway fashion. Like a deep breath in and out with the seasons. The weight of all that ice falling and leaving keeps that red lump beating every year. Don’t believe those who say Mars is dead. We don’t know yet. Don’t count out anything with a breath and a beat. What is life on a planetary scale, anyhow?
The gas giants have atmospheric pressures so high it kind of stops making sense to use these as comparisons, and instead we have to look to geology for analogues as deep within the earth we also approach these energy densities.