Earth-Venus-Mars Comparison

This page was copied from Nick Strobel's Astronomy Notes. Go to his site at www.astronomynotes.com for the updated and corrected version.

This is a flowchart summary of the histories of the terrestrial planet atmospheres (Venus, Earth, and Mars). It shows the histories side-by-side so it is easier to compare the planet histories. The file is a big GIF file that came from an EPS file. All drawings were done on my NeXT.

The chart for Venus up to the dashed arrow describes the runaway greenhouse process that happened a few billion years ago. The bottom diamond describes the current condition. The chart for Mars up to the dashed arrow describes the runaway refrigerator process that happened a couple of billion or more years ago. The bottom rectangle describes the current condition. The chart for the Earth describes the carbon dioxide cycle as it currently operates. The Earth exists balanced between the two extremes of Venus and Mars.

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last updated 13 August 1997

Is this page a copy of Strobel's Astronomy Notes?

Author of original content: Nick Strobel