Every ball is an odd ball

No, this isn’t going to be a more or less pythonesque version of that famous song that goes “every sperm is sacred”. It’s a reaction to this article, that claims that Venus and Uranus are “the Solar System’s oddballs”. Had it been written a handful of years ago, it would have been Pluto to get the honor. Now, it’s Venus and Uranus.

Well, with my apologies to this Christopher Sirola, who wrote the article and should really know better, but it’s dead wrong.

Dead.

Wrong.

The thing is: every ball is an odd ball.

Mercury is an oddball because it’s way denser than anything else of similar size in the Solar System and has a day (a solar day, that is) which is twice as long as its year. Yes, you need two mercurian years to complete only one mercurian day, which means that Mercury has the simplest calendar in the Solar System.

Venus is an oddball because, as mr. Sirola states in his article, rotates backwards. The Sun rises in the west and sets in the east, a long 58 or so (Earth) days later. If you could see it, that is, because Venus has a dense atmosphere with hellish temperatures and is permanently overcast by clouds of sulfuric acid, among other migraine-inducing compounds.

The Earth is an oddball because its surface is largely covered by a several-km deep layer of liquid water. And because of that green stuff that gets everywhere, that chlorophyl or whatever its name is. And because it’s dotted with strange lights in its night side. And… hell, there are so many unique characteristics about it that the Earth is the oddball of oddballs. ‘Nuff said.

Mars is an oddball because of those gigantic pimples it shows, those enormous volcanos in Tharsis and, of course, that behemoth 27 km high known as Olympus Mons. It’s also an oddball because of another behemoth in the canyon department, known as Valles Marineris. Because of its global dust storms. And, of course, because of all that rust.

Jupiter is an oddball because it has a red hurricane that has been going round in its atmosphere for centuries. Because it’s by far the most massive object in the system after the Sun. Because it emits more radiation than it absorbs. Because of all those multicoloured cloud bands, whirling at different speeds around and blurring its oh-so-short day.

Saturn is an oddball because of its rings. One could speak of many other features (polar hexagon, anyone?) but, really, the rings are more than enough.

Uranus is an oddball because it’s laying down on its orbit, of course. And Neptune is an oddball because it’s the only one left, apart from all those planets we still know too little about to really understand how oddballish they are: Ceres, Pluto, Eris, Makemake, etc., etc., etc. And don’t get me started on the secondary ones. One is yellow with sulfuric volcanos everywhere, another is orange with a thick atmosphere and lakes of hydrocarbons, another has jets of ice in its south pole, another is white and cracked and has a subsurface ocean, another is half pitch-black, half snow-white, another… pfuah! Let me breathe here!

The truth is, in the Solar System each world is unique. One of a kind and full of surprises. They are all oddballs, each in its own way, shaped by its own unique history to become what we see today. Maybe one day, when the number of known and well-studied extrasolar planets becomes as mindboggling as the number of stars is, we’ll find close twins to all of them, but I’d bet that we’ll be finding surprises just about everywhere, subtle differences that make all the difference.

I’d bet that we’ll end up discovering that, indeed, every ball is an odd ball. Everywhere, not only in the Solar System.