Our Dangerous Solar System Trivia Quiz

Answer: Extreme temperatures

Mercury has extreme temperatures. On the sunny side, heat can reach 800 degrees Fahrenheit (426 Celsius). On the dark side, temperature can fall as low as -290 Fahrenheit (-179 Celsius). In either case, you would be dead very quickly.

Mercury has an atmosphere, although a fairly slight one. It contains some oxygen, so you would breathe in the seconds before you were roasted. Gravity on Mercury is 38 percent that of Earth, so you could move around easily before you burned or froze.

Answer: Gravity

Gravity on Venus is roughly 90 percent that of Earth, so it would not be a severe hindrance. The other factors on Venus would kill you stone dead extremely rapidly.

The surface temperature on Venus can get as high as 860 degrees Fahrenheit (460 Celsius), making it the hottest planet in the solar system. Zinc and tellurium would melt on Venus.

Atmospheric pressure on Venus is 92 bars, roughly 90 times that on Earth. You would be crushed Instantly as you landed on Venus. The dense hot atmosphere also traps clouds of sulfuric acid, which would melt you.

Answer: United States

The Soviet Union lost only four cosmonauts. The members of Soyuz 11 were the only astronauts to die in space, i.e. above the Karman Line.

The United States lost 15 space travelers. Seven on the Challenger in January 1986 and seven on the Columbia in February 2003. The last is X-15 pilot Michael Adams, who crossed the threshold into space before his plane crashed.

Answer: Low atmospheric pressure

While atmospheric pressure on Earth is around 1000 millibars, on Mars it is six or seven millibars, less than one percent. It would be the rough equivalent of skydiving in the upper atmosphere without a spacesuit. Your lungs would explode almost instantly.

Mars' atmosphere is 85 percent carbon dioxide, so you would suffocate in about five minutes without a spacesuit. The average temperature on Mars is 85 below zero Fahrenheit (-65 Celsius), but there are places and times it can rise to 70 degrees (21 Celsius). You could survive for a few hours during the right time of day.

While radiation levels on Mars are about 100 times higher than Earth, thanks to the thin atmosphere, it would take a while before the cumulative effect killed you.

Answer: Stratosphere

Jupiter is basically a giant ball of hydrogen and helium, a cooler version of the sun. It has no surface to land on, but once you got to the troposphere you would be trapped inside a ball of immensely hot gasses under huge pressures.

Even in a spacesuit, you would be crushed by atmospheric pressure by the time you hit the stratosphere. The pressure would be between. 2 and 3 million bars, close to that of the center of the Earth. Pressure at Jupiter's core is as high as 100 million bars.

Actually the temperatures in the thermosphere would likely bake you before the pressure killed you.

Answer: Io

Io is the most irradiated place in the solar system, with daily levels of 3600 rems, radiation levels that are hundreds of times the lethal dose for humans.

Ganymede and Europa are both highly radioactive, around 5 to 8 rems You would freeze on Europa before the radiation got you. The radiation on Ganymede would kill you in a few days.

Callisto is the only moon where radiation levels are low enough to make it habitable.

Answer: Freezing temperatures

Titan is extremely cold, with an average temperature of around -180 Fahrenheit (-117 Celsius). It is basically a large ball of ice. Titan is one possible location of life outside of Earth as it contains hydrocarbons

Titan's gravity is about the same as Earth's moon, so getting around would be easy. The pressure on Titan is about 60 percent greater than Earth -- it would kill you, but not nearly as quickly as the cold.

The threat of cosmic radiation is less on Titan than on some of Saturn's other moons because of its dense atmosphere. This also blocks out most sunlight, so the surface of Titan would be extremely dark.

Answer: Neptune

While the winds on Uranus are nothing to mess with, at up to 560 miles per hour, winds on Neptune can reach 1100 miles per hour (1770 kilometers per hour).

While the winds would kill you fastest, Neptune is also a giant icebox with an average temperature of minus 350 Fahrenheit (-212 Celsius). Or you could be killed breathing in toxic methane. Not a good place to vacation.

Answer: Dense gravity

Uranus has a gravity of 0.88, so just a little less than on Earth. You would weigh slightly less as you faced a gruesome suffocating, freezing, crushing death.

Like Neptune, Uranus has a methane atmosphere. It is even colder than Neptune. And like the other gas giants, immense pressures would compress you as you headed toward the core.

Answer: Dust particles

Ironically, dust on the moon caused the biggest problems for astronauts. It degraded their spacesuits and equipment, and gave them lung problems such as bronchitis. Most of the dust on the moon is a fine silicate like glass particles, and stays suspended due to low gravity.

While muscle atrophy and exposure to radiation would be long term issues, the moon missions did not last long enough for them to be serious.

NASA was aware of the temperature extremes on the moon and designed equipment to compensate.

The moon is dangerous. Without a spacesuit you would suffocate in a few minutes.