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What's the weather like in space? In Planet Storm, we look at weather systems on Mars, Jupiter and other planets, probing the secrets of natural phenomena that are so huge they make the mind boggle. To reach distant planets, astronauts will have to survive the magnetic storms and solar winds that make up space weather. And, at the end of their journey, alien weather – rather than alien life – will be their number one problem. • On Jupiter, there are storms big enough to swallow the Earth, with 300mph winds that could grind human cities into rubble and blow for hundreds of years. • If a typical Martian storm, with its mile-high wall of choking dust and sand, hit Earth, it would devour everything in its path at half the speed of sound, until every square foot of land was sandblasted to oblivion. • Lightning such as that found on Jupiter would explode on Earth with a force 100 times greater than Earth's lightning, leaving a trail of devastation. • Constant volcanic eruptions, such as those on Jupiter's moon, Io, would create a rain of deadly radiation on Earth, ripping the atmosphere apart, until all life became extinct. |
