Sector 7

With Mercury and Venus being the closest ones to the sun, Smolder volunteered to chart them. These two planets would be blistering hot, so she readied her heat suit and swapped out the cooling-water with liquid nitrogen. Mercury was filled with craters, similar to Earth's moon as Sandbar said. Whenever the sun was beating down, the surface reached a scorching 800 degrees Fahrenheit. However, there was no atmosphere to hold in all of that heat. So the temperature plummeted to a bitter-cold negative 290 degrees Fahrenheit. On some parts of the planet, the sun would rise briefly, set quickly, and then rise again. Temperatures and high levels of radiation from the sun led Smolder to say that it was impossible for life to be possible without extreme protection on Mercury.

Venus was another story. This planet was hotter than Mercury since it was heavily wrapped in clouds and covered with thousands of small volcanoes. The hottest temperature reached 900 degrees Fahrenheit. The clouds were mostly composed of sulfuric acid, and there were high levels of carbon-dioxide which had a corrosive effect at surface levels. This was due to the fact that the CO2 was both very hot and at high pressure at the same time. Luckily, both Smolder's suit and her ship were designed to be resistant to atmospheres like this. She had to watch her step in order to avoid stepping or falling in the boiling rivers of lava. Once Smolder was certain that she had mapped out Venus completely, she lifted off and returned to the space station around Earth.