Our common sense expects that objects that are closer to hot objects will have higher surface temperatures. For example, the faces and hands of those who are closer to the fire than people standing around a campfire will be more heated.
The same applies to The Sun and the planets orbiting it, which have a huge campfire (but emit heat due to core reactions instead of combustion). But with a significant difference: the surface temperature of Mercury, the closest planet to The Sun (427 degrees Celsius on average), is lower than the temperature of Venus, the second closest planet (462 degrees Celsius on average)! So the farther planet is hotter than the closer planet! Why does this happen?
The main reason is that common sense in science is too open to error. Because common sense usually tends to accept the simplest and most obvious explanation correctly. In essence, this is not a bad thing and can often contribute to reaching accurate judgments. But it can also cause you to oversimplify and make erroneous assumptions about issues that were originally much more complex. For example, in our campfire example, we ignored the structural properties of objects when correlating distance and temperature. We just thought of it as a" human body." However, if the things you compare are materials with different structures, such as wood and metal, with different thermal coefficients, metal will be able to heat faster and overheat than wood, even if it is farther away from the campfire!
The main reason is that common sense in science is too open to error. Because common sense usually tends to accept the simplest and most obvious explanation correctly. In essence, this is not a bad thing and can often contribute to reaching accurate judgments. But it can also cause you to oversimplify and make erroneous assumptions about issues that were originally much more complex. For example, in our campfire example, we ignored the structural properties of objects when correlating distance and temperature. We just thought of it as a" human body." However, if the things you compare are materials with different structures, such as wood and metal, with different thermal coefficients, metal will be able to heat faster and overheat than wood, even if it is farther away from the campfire!
This is true for mercury and Venus, too. Although we call it" Planet", there are significant structural differences between these two planets. At the beginning of these differences are the extremely dense atmosphere of Venus and the extremely thin atmosphere of Mercury. The atmosphere, especially the atmosphere with carbon-based greenhouse gases, is almost like a blanket: it envelops planets and traps rays from the sun in the planet's body. In this way, even if less heat energy is coming, this energy can be used to increase the temperature by keeping it on the surface for longer periods of time.
For this reason, Venus ' thick atmosphere can trap heat from the Sun on its surface for much longer periods and much more effectively than Mercury. In this way, it can have a higher surface temperature than Mercury, even if it is farther from The Sun. In contrast, the intense sun's rays coming to Mercury are scattered into space, easily escaping the thin atmosphere. Mercury is therefore colder than Venus.
For this reason, Venus ' thick atmosphere can trap heat from the Sun on its surface for much longer periods and much more effectively than Mercury. In this way, it can have a higher surface temperature than Mercury, even if it is farther from The Sun. In contrast, the intense sun's rays coming to Mercury are scattered into space, easily escaping the thin atmosphere. Mercury is therefore colder than Venus.
In fact, it is also possible to adapt this to our common sense example: if you have a blanket, you can stay warmer than a friend who doesn't have a blanket, but is closer to the campfire, even if you are farther away from the campfire!