Erosion on the Earths Moon, Venus and Mercury Assignment - 1

Erosion on the Earths Moon, Venus and Mercury - Assignment Example Its solid surface and thick crust also support this idea. The right reason why there is so less erosion observed in the surface of Mercury and Venus is that unlike Earth, these planets have no tectonic plates. Since there are no tectonic plates to move with respect to one another, therefore, there remains no room for the energy from the Mantle to escape. Instead, Venus goes through a repetitive process that makes the temperature of the Mantle rise to a critical point, beyond which the crust melts, though it takes quite long for it to renew itself, thereby dissipating all of the stored heat in the Mantle. Besides, Venus has no moons to produce a tidal effect and accordingly, no erosion results because of a lack of moons’ gravity. Erosion on the moon is very less / negligible because there is no wind or precipitation to cause erosion. A planets size and its distance from the Sun play a very important role in deciding the atmosphere a planet would have. Let’s take the example of the planet Earth. Earth is the fifth-largest planet among all and it is two planets (Mercury and Venus) away from the Sun. Unlike many other planets, the huge size of Earth leaves a lot of room for the heat to accumulate in its interior i. e. the core of Earth. The accumulated heat forces the tectonic plates to slide past one another so that the heat can be dissipated outside the earth into the atmosphere. â€Å"Earths geological activity also affects the average temperatures. As a simple example, if there is a massive volcanic eruption that sends large amounts of dust into the atmosphere, then the dust could block sunlight thereby cooling the Earth.† (Pandian, 2002).