• Question: do all the planets have an atmosphere?

    Asked by rosieredxxx to Claire, Kate, Matt, Rob, Sam on 24 Jun 2013.
    • Photo: Sam Geen

      Sam Geen answered on 24 Jun 2013:

      Yes – even Mercury has a very thin atmosphere, which is made either by the solar wind being trapped or from its surface being blasted away by the same solar wind (the solar wind is a stream of charged particles from the Sun). Venus has a very dense, poisonous atmosphere, caused by extreme global warming. The gas giants Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune are almost all atmosphere, with a very small solid core.

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