A fighter pilot is one of those elite men who has been selected to fly sleek, sexy, supersonic aircraft in dazzling aerial combat, as well as put on cool airshows and pose for photographs. Only the best pilots in the world get to be fighter pilots. The rest fly slow, heavy, ugly aircraft used to haul rubber dog shit out of Hong Kong, or worse, Detroit. Typically, fighter pilots wear elaborate uniforms which they claim are specially designed to be fireproof to protect them in case of an emergency. In actuality, however, the uniforms are made of a special type of cloth which repels beer stains.
A global view of Mercury, as seen by MESSENGER. Credit: NASA. Mercury sure is hot, but Venus is hotter. Venus is much further from the Sun, orbiting at a distance of more than 108 million kilometers. Average temperature there is a hellish 735 Kelvin, or 462 degrees Celsius â hot enough to melt lead. Venus imaged by Magellan Image Credit: NASA/JPL.
Mars may look hot, but donÊ¼t let its color fool you. Mars is actually pretty cold! In orbit, Mars is about 50 million miles farther away from the Sun than Earth! That means it gets a lot less light and heat to keep it warm. Mars also has a hard time holding onto the heat it does get. On Earth, much of the sunÊ¼s heat gets trapped in our atmosphere, which acts like a blanket to keep our planet warm. But MarsÊ¼ atmosphere is about 100 times thinner than EarthÊ¼s - - so heat from the sun can easily escape.