Thursday, January 21, 2016

Tree with Internal Heating.


The internal heating within terrestrial planets powers tectonic and volcanic activities. Of the terrestrial planets in the Solar System, Earth has the most internal heating because it is the most massive. Mercury and Mars have no ongoing visible surface effects of internal heating because they are only 5 and 11% the mass of Earth respectively; they are nearly "geologically dead" (however, see Mercury's magnetic field and Geological history of Mars). Earth, being more massive, has a great enough ratio of mass to surface area for its internal heating to drive plate tectonics and volcanism

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