If you were a true lover of travel, you might think that traversing our solar system would be the ultimate vacation. Well, with the right protective equipment you could have a grand time, but there are a few spots where even the best spacesuit won’t do you much good.
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Io – Lovely Lakes of Fire
Jupiter’s moon Io is the ultimate getaway if your idea of a good time is fire and brimstone. Io is the most geologically active body in the solar system, and its landscape is a chaotic mess of lava lakes, towering plumes of molten rock, and surface temperatures that swing between extremes.
Taking a hike? That would be pretty hard, not just because of the sulfurous (barely-there) atmosphere, but also because the landscape is constantly changing, so a map wouldn’t be much help.
The volcanoes on Io are so enormous that we can often see them with large Earth-based telescopes. If you like the idea of lakes, you’ll love the lakes of molten silicate lava on the surface of Io.
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Titan – Surf the Methane Oceans
Looking for a water-based adventure? Saturn’s largest moon, Titan, has vast lakes and rivers, but they’re not filled with water. Instead, they contain liquid methane and ethane, a chilling cocktail at -290°F (-179°C).
Imagine kayaking on an alien ocean, surrounded by thick, orange smog that completely obscures the sun. While Titan’s atmosphere is dense enough to make parachuting an option, the frigid temperatures and lack of breathable air make it less of a thrill-seeker’s paradise and more of a slow, inevitable freeze-fest. That said, thanks to the low gravity, you might actually be able to strap on some wings and “swim” through the atmosphere like a bird. Well, a soon-to-be birdcicle, but still it sounds amazing.
Titan has similar gravity to that of Earth’s Moon, which sounds like fun, but with (we think) water reservoirs under its icy crust being one of the likely places to harbor life in our solar system (other than Earth) you might get more than you bargained for.
Earth’s so-called “evil twin” is anything but hospitable. Venus is a death trap wrapped in a deceptively beautiful golden sky. The surface temperature is a scorching 900°F (475°C)—hot enough to melt lead. If the heat doesn’t get ya, the crushing pressure will!
The air is 93 times denser than Earth’s, making it feel like you’re standing at the bottom of an ocean. And then there’s the rain. Venusian clouds are full of sulfuric acid, which means if you somehow survived the heat and pressure, the sky itself would try to dissolve you—brutal. Unless you were on the surface, since the acid rain evaporates before hitting the surface, but that’s small comfort because you’re probably squashed to 1% of your original size.
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Jupiter’s Great Red Spot – the Greatest Storm Known to Man
If you think hurricanes on Earth are bad, wait until you experience the “Great Red Spot.” This massive storm (larger than Earth itself!) has been raging for at least 300 years. The winds scream at speeds of up to 400 mph, and the atmosphere is a swirling mess of hydrogen and helium, with traces of ammonia giving it its reddish hue.
Of course, as a gas giant there’s no part of Jupiter that would really be a great vacationing spot because there’s no solid surface, but maybe you’d prefer to just watch this beautiful storm from icy Ganymede—Jupiter’s largest moon. Ganymede is bigger than planet Mercury and ex-planet Pluto. Ganymede also has auroras, and possibly an underground saltwater ocean. So it sounds like a great place to hang out and watch the Spot from a safe distance.
You better hurry however, the storm has been shrinking for as long as humans have been observing it and in a few hundred years it might be gone. Or not. Honestly Earth weather is hard enough to predict.
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Charon – Space’s Ice Machine
Pluto may no longer qualify as a planet, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t have the right to moons. Charon is Pluto’s largest satellite, and at first it might seem like a pretty chill place—literally. However, while it might be calm and cool, back in 2007, scientists realized that there may have been ice geysers made of mostly water and ammonia on Charon, leading some to call it the solar system’s ice machine.
Speaking of which—is Charon really a moon? It’s about 50% of Pluto’s size, which means that it might be more accurate to refer to Pluto and Charon as a double dwarf planet system. Alternatively, it’s the biggest satellite relative to the body it orbits around, and you thought Earth’s Moon was a chonker.
I don’t know about you, but I live 10 minutes from the beach and I can barely manage one mildly sunny day outside, so perhaps the whole space tourism thing might not be for me. Still, I do like thinking about what it would be like to witness these alien places in our proverbial backyard.
