It's not just about distance. It's about atmospheres that trap heat like a prison, or worlds so barren that heat simply vanishes into the void. Let's take the tour:
Mercury: The solar system's front-row seat to the Sun. Days: a soul-vaporizing 430°C (800°F). Nights: a brittle -180°C (-290°F). No atmosphere means no mercy; it's a world of raw, unfiltered solar violence and absolute cosmic freeze.
Venus: The ultimate paradox. It's farther from the Sun than Mercury, yet it is the hottest planet at a constant 465°C (870°F). Its thick CO2 atmosphere is a runaway greenhouse blanket, making it a perpetually scorching, crushing, acid-raining hellscape. Proximity doesn't win—atmosphere does.
Earth: The miraculous, fragile Goldilocks Zone. A delicate average of 15°C (59°F), maintained by our life-giving atmosphere. It's the thermal freak in the family - the only one that's just right.
Mars: A frozen desert. A thin atmosphere can't hold heat, so it averages a harsh -65°C (-85°F). Its "summer day" near the equator might briefly reach a balmy 20°C, but don't be fooled—the night will plunge it back into a deep freeze.
The Gas Giants (Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune): Here, temperature becomes a function of internal pressure and leftover formation heat. Their cloud tops are brutally cold: Jupiter at -110°C, Saturn at -140°C. But dive down, and pressures create infernos of thousands of degrees.
Neptune: The distant, dark sentinel. Despite receiving virtually no sunlight, it's not the coldest. Its core heat keeps it at -200°C (-330°F), strangely warmer than its twin, Uranus (-224°C), which is a stagnant, icy ball with a dead core.
The lesson is brutal and beautiful. Our solar system isn't a neat gradient from hot to cold. It's a chaotic experiment in atmospheric chemistry, axial tilt, and internal furnaces. It proves that a planet's personality isn't set by its address, but by the brutal, unique physics of its own air and core.
We don't live in a system of planets. We live in a system of extreme, impossible ovens and freezers.