Would it be better if the planet was cooling?
457897
No.  If the planet were on a cooling trend, and stayed that way for a while, it might be heading towards a periodic Ice Age, as it has done in the past.  We would consume a lot more of outr limited energy resources just to keep ourselves warm.  Also, don't worry so much about Global Warming.  As I said before, nature goes through these cycles of warming and cooling.  Yes. humans have an impact, but it is small.
952186
It's generally true that the further the Earth were from the Sun, the colder it would be, and the closer the warmer.  However, this is not necessarily the most important factor.  For example, the Earth is closer to the Sun when it is winter in the Northern Hemisphere, not further.  But the winter is cold because the Northern Hemisphere tilts away from the Sun at this time.  In a nearly circular orbit, the tilt of the axis is a stronger effect than the orbit's eccentricity.  However, with all other things equal, the planet's temperature would vary with distance from the Sun.\n\nThe Sun has a range of orbits around it that are considered a "habitable zone."  The Earth could have different orbital distances within this range, and life on Earth could theoretically continue, but probably with great disruption to the ecosystem.  Not all species would survive.  Humans would have a good shot because we could use technology to warm or cool our enviornment as needed.  Closer to the Sun that the habitabile zone, the heat and radiation are too intense for life as we know it.  Further away, the heat and light available are insufficient to sustain life.\n\nEarth could quite possibly exist as a habitable planet in the orbits current occupied by Venus and Mars.  Venus is extremely hot, but much of that comes from Venus' runaway greenhouse effect that makes its surface hotter than that of Mercury, which is closer to the Sun.  Mars is rather cold, but that is partly due to the planet's lack of greenhouse gases, preventing it from retaining the Sun's energy to the extent that Earth does.
798933
water as in H2O? just ok...\nyeah covered with it... \nas long as the planet is not made up entirely of water.... that wold be like a big floating water vapor....\nhaha
800747
Sounds good to me except for #8. Without sufficient mass, the planet would lose it's atmosphere. There sure are a lot of jokers around here, have you noticed.
809106
No because no planet has exactly the same living conditions which ours provide. And we know thtat any slight change in the composition of gases or the distance of the sun in relation to the earth can have a darmatic impact if not fatal one on our lives
260369
No but it would affect existence on the planet! There is a delicate balance to be maintained and if polar ice caps melted, this balance would be tipped over.  You can certainly expect weird weather.
1034315
Yes - it would.  But the likelihood is the other way around - the sun is more likely to get hotter and hotter - then explode into a supernova.
213682
The main problem with mars is not thelack of air, but the local gravity's inability to hold much air on the planet- as such you need a heavy gas to be able to be held by the gravity longer. One idea would be to send rockets full of old cfc containers on a collision course to mars, the release of the cfc's would cause a partial runaway greenhouse effect thht would begin to warm the planet over decades.\nAlso, ice comets can be used on aerobraking orbitals to slowly melt in the atmosphere, thus watering the planet and warming the air by the aerobraking.\nThe temperature differentials are due to the very thin atmosphere and would become less extreme with a thicker blanket of air.\nAnother option would be to genetically modify algae and lichen to live in the high UV and co2 rich atmosphere and crack the co2 into oxygen, while leaving the carbon as a slurry-type layer that can be refined for use in building materials\nThere is lots of potential - all that really remains is to define the technology level and then go for it -  imagination is a wonderful thing - we need to use more of it
758051
Of your choices, (e) is the best.  (a) is no good because it fails to account for the continuing generation of heat, as, for example, by the earth.  (b) is no good because they were all about the same temperature when they formed.  As the protoplanets grew larger, their interiors began to heat up.  (c) is no good because what matters more is density, and there's no reason to believe there are significant differences in the density of radioactive elements.  (d) is just plain false: Earth is farther from the sun than Mercury.\n\nThat leaves (e).  Surface area of a sphere is 4pr^2, where p is pi, and volume is (4/3) pr^3, so the ratio of surface area to volume varies as 1/r ... it varies inversely with radius, so the ratio for smaller planets is greater than that for larger ones.\n\nThe key connection, though, is internal <pressure>, which is a direct function of r.  Larger planets have more pressure at their centers, and that means more heat.  In fact, if the "planet" were big enough, it would become a star.\n\nConclusion:  Big means hot.
1085010
You mean outside of a biodome? None currently show any promise of sustaining human life in an unaltered state. Most would be too cold, even Mars would be too cold most of the year, the only option is a enclosed biodome, like a space station on a planet, or through terraforming. Terraforming so far would be viable for Mars because of it's proximity and it's like an open ground, there's less in the way (Venus would be very difficult by comparison) outside that the best options appear to be Jupiter's moons such as Titan with a heavy water content and nitrogen.
1159880
No.  It is designed to stay within the Earth's atmosphere.
223615
if only you could bring planet to standstill then  it would surely hit sun.the movement of planet around sun create a centrifugal force resisting gravitational pull.
454220
Neptune is a balmy 218 below...Celsius. As far as living there consider this:\n\na) Neptune is a gas planet, with no solid surface. We'd fall right through.\nb) We'd freeze.\nc) There is nothing for us to breathe there.\n\nThat's just the beginning of that list. The answer is no.
176083
Maybe the ground temperature is hotter. Its temperature doesn't count on outside factor. The sun is just 1 factor.
306901
cooling takes a very long time.  A body the size of the moon takes hundreds of millions of years to cool.  The earth, with no internal heating would take billions of years to cool, and as people have said, it is being heated by the sun, internally from radioactive decay and an atmosphere exists which allows for the greenhouse effect.  So the cooling will take much much longer.
535923
um...There wouldn't be anything, there would be no earth, the sun will increase in diameter causing the temp. on earth to rise VERY high, and people will finally build a powerful rocket to go to another planet that's similar to earth or mars...
430311
Why don't we just fly the planet into the sun?