Question: hello Juan which is the most important planet in our solar system?

Juan Carlos Lopez-Baez answered on 8 Mar 2014:

Hi gracefulforever

Well, as boring as it might sound, the Earth is the most important planet in our solar system. This is because it is the planet that we are in and the only planet that is known to be able to sustain life.

There are other planets that are also interesting, such as Mars, one of our nearest neighbours. Mars is very similar in size to the Earth and it has been suggested that it could have harboured life many thousands or millions of years ago, though scientists are still trying to determine this. The problem with Mars is that, unlike Earth, it has a very thin atmosphere which is not enough to keep liquid water on its surface (an essential requirement for life) and hardly has any oxygen. Also, even though its temperatures are more moderate than that of other planets, it still varies from around 30°C to -140 °C because the atmosphere is not able to retain the heat from the Sun.

Other planets that scientist are excited about are…not planets, but moons. They are some of the moons from Saturn and Jupiter, which have atmospheres and scientist believe that they might also have underground oceans of water.

All said, I wouldn’t start packing my bags yet. Even though all of these planets could harbour/have harboured life, they are still very uninhabitable for humans (and a very long distance away!).