Increased heat from the runaway greenhouse effect evaporates oceans, producing more greenhouse heating. This happened to _____ and might happen to _____ someday.

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The question describes a scenario where an intensified greenhouse effect leads to ocean evaporation, causing further heating, and asks which planets this has happened to and could happen to in the future.
Option 1: "Venus; Mars". The first part is plausible because Venus is the classic example of a runaway greenhouse effect in which oceans have not existed for a long time. However, the second part asserting Mars could someday undergo a runaway greenhouse is implausible given Mars’s thin atmosphere, low greenhouse warming potential, and lack of vast surface water reservoirs to evaporate; thus this pairing is incorrect.
Option 2: "Mars; Mercury". Mars never underwent a runaway greenhouse; it is cold with a thin atmosphere, not a runaway-outcome world. Mercury also would not be expected to develop a runaway greenhouse in the future due to its proximity to the Sun but almost no atmosphere and no oceans to evaporate. This makes the option incorrect.
Option 3: "Venus; the Earth". This matches the known history where Venus experienced a runaway greenhouse, and Earth faces concerns that a sufficiently strong, long-term greenhouse effect could potentially push it toward similar, though not identical, runaway outcomes in the distant future. This aligns with the described mechanism and risk, making this a correct pairing.
Option 4: "the Earth; Venus". Reversing the order implies Earth already did a runaway greenhouse and Venus might do so in the future, which contradicts current scientific understanding: Venus has the runaway history, Earth has not, so this option is incorrect.
Option 5: "the Earth; Mars". This suggests Earth already did a runaway greenhouse and Mars could later, which again contradicts known history and planetary conditions; Mars’s environment does not support a runaway greenhouse scenario. This is incorrect.
In summary, only Option 3 correctly pairs Venus as the planet that experienced a runaway greenhouse and Earth as the planet that could face a similar future risk, while all other options misstate the historical or prospective contexts or mix up the planetary cases.

ASTRON 2140 AU2025 (23428) Quiz 3 - 2025 Nov 3

Increased heat from the runaway greenhouse effect evaporates oceans, producing more greenhouse heating. This happened to _ and might happen to _ someday.

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