In a nutshell, the extreme environments will destroy both you and your aircraft in a number of horrible ways. But how exactly would it happen?
Randall Munroe, founder of the popular webcomic xkcd, explores the different ways you would crash and die in his entertaining book "What If? Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions." Here’s what will happen if you tried to fly an airplane above different Solar System bodies?
Mercury - You'd fall nosedive
Planes use the air on Earth to generate a difference in pressure below and above the wings, which produces lift. But there's no atmosphere on Mercury, which means you couldn't even glide on it. If you drove the plane off a cliff, you'd fall nosedive.
Venus's Lower Atmosphere: Flight is
possible but the air's hot as lead. You'd melt
Venus's Upper Atmosphere: Flight is possible but corrosion is a factor due to sulfuric acid so no exposed metal
The atmosphere on Venus is over 60 times denser than Earth's, which means that a plane would easily take off. "Unfortunately, the air it's rising into is hot enough to melt lead. The paint would start melting off in seconds, the plane's components would fail rapidly, and the plane would glide gently into the ground as it came apart under the heat stress," says Randall. A gentle reminder to all of you that the average temperature on Venus is 462 degrees Celsius and to make matter worse, the clouds on Venus rain sulfuric acid.
A much better bet would be to fly above the clouds. While Venus's surface is awful, its upper atmosphere is surprisingly Earth-like. Around 55 kilometers up, a human could survive with an oxygen mask and a protective wetsuit.
Earth - It's obvious that Earth offers a
perfect environment to fly
Mars - Atmosphere's too thin to fly below mach 1
(speed of sound), above mach 1 you
essentially can't steer
The atmosphere on Mars is 100 times thinner than Earth's. So the aircraft has to move very fast‚ at about Mach 1 (speed of sound), to produce the right difference in pressure above and below the wings to lift off. Once in the air though, you'd be going too fast to have any steering control!
Jupiter - High gravity makes flight
extremely unrealistic
Jupiter's gravity is too strong, so the power required to maintain flight is about 3 times that of Earth. Rather than plummeting, the plane would achieve some lift in the atmosphere, so you'd glide downwards at 600 mph (965 kph) toward the centre. If you didn't freeze, you'd be crushed by overwhelming pressure.
Saturn - Flight's possible but your aircraft
might ultimately succumb to the cold and extreme weather
The weaker gravity—close to Earth's, actually—and slightly denser (but still thin) atmosphere mean that you will be able to stay in the air for some time. But eventually you'll freeze in the -270 degree Fahrenheit (-167 degrees Celsius) atmosphere and plummet toward the centre, just like on Jupiter.
Uranus - Same as Saturn but you might last a bit longer
Uranus is a strange, uniform bluish orb. There are high winds and it's bitterly cold. You and your aircraft would actually weigh less on Uranus than on Earth, so you could fly for as long as it took the plane's fuel to freeze solid in the frigid -350 degrees Fahrenheit (-212 degrees Celsius) environment.
Neptune - Your aircraft would break in pieces due to extreme turbulence in atmosphere
The winds on Neptune are the strongest in the Solar System, reaching up to 2,100 kilometres (1,305 miles) per hour. If that is not enough the temperature on the planet can drop upto -360 degree Fahrenheit (-218 degrees Celsius). There is no chance that your plane can withstand this double whammy.
Were you pleasantly surprised by the findings? Do you think that in distant future mankind will develop necessary technology that will help us fly in extreme conditions? Let’s know your views in the comments below.